Strolling Player

Mirror Image

2011-12-16T21:58:00.000-05:00

She left the web, she left the loom,

She made three paces through the room,

She saw the helmet and the plume,

She look'd down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror crack'd from side to side;

"The curse is come upon me," cried

The Lady of Shalott.

I look into the mirror.

I am ageing.

Winter, but no snow on the ground.

Not here.

Melancholy surrounded by serenity.

I feel a cold bite in the air.

Raw. Sharp.

Winter is gathering its forces.

Icy winds. The advance scouts.

Probing weakness in our defenses.

The snows will come, but not yet.
Not yet.

It’s tempting to look back at my time of life, at this time of year.

So I am lucky to have two young girls who keep me in the present.

In fact they demand me to be present.

There is little time for reflection.

And here they are:

Maia - physically beautiful with a strong but fragile personality.

Eyes the color of the Caribbean Sea, sparkling beneath small scudding clouds in azure sky…sunlight darting in and out.

Coming to us aged 15 months, she has an intensely close relationship with Heidi.

Looking on, you might think she is needy, but this would be underestimating her character. Her quick and enquiring mind is wrapped in a constantly shifting emotional landscape.

She looks to Heidi - her 'mama' - for her encouragement, nourishment and support.

Heidi put a lot of work into building her relationship with Maia from the beginning, despite being pregnant with Aphra.

For her, it was a huge adjustment as well as a sacrifice.

Unable to experience her first pregnancy the way of other first-time mothers, she never gave any outward sign of resentment.

She said it was there, but I never saw it.

Maia’s relationship with me bumps along with highs and lows. She may be only 3 years old, but there is a knowledge and knowingness that is much older. If you put the work in, she will give back many times over.

I find I am learning so much more from her than she is probably learning from me.

Living with Maia is like living with an unpredictable weather pattern.

You never know when it's going to be sunny, raining, cloudy, warm, cold, snowing...

Aphra - dark, attractive, and strong.

Eyes like the impenetrable waters in a deep adumbral pool. Her demeanor is straightforward, funny, mischievous and uncomplicated.

Aphra has always been the antithesis to Maia's emotional pyrotechnics.

She is the emotionally secure one, the listener, the older presence and the peacemaker.

She loves me.

This took me by surprise.

I had been used to Maia's indifference to me and devotion to Heidi. I assumed that Aphra would be the same. But Aphra looks at me with a complete understanding of who I am and loves me anyway.

Yesterday she hurt herself. As expected, she ran to her mother for comfort.

But after 30 seconds, she pulled away and looked for me, moving from her mother's arms and sympathy to mine.

With a genuine unconscious need, she asked for--she wanted--me.

Heidi cried.

I was too surprised to cry.

Twelve years ago, a clairvoyant told me that I would live on a lake with my twins. We did indeed live on a lake, and it seems to Heidi and me that the clairvoyant was only slightly mistaken in seeing twins. To us, our girls seem as close as twins and are always likely to remain so. They are inseparable. And they came to us, like twins, at the same time.

They are different - yes.

But like different sides of the same coin.

So those are my girls. I wanted to write about them now because time moves on.

We are all growing older

The year draws to a close.

I have lost my father, and some close friends, and people I didn't know but admired.

I realize that losing people/missing them is not looking back, not a reflection.

One lives with it on a daily basis.

The loss is ever present.

In this moment, I know how lucky I am.

Lucky to have a caring partner who understands me, if not always approving of my shifting mood swings.

Fortunate to have a naturally caring and wise mother for our children.

Blessed with the girls and the chaos, laughter and fun they have brought into my life.

They force me to listen.

They demand my attention.

They respond to honest direct communication.

I look into the mirror.

And even though I’m ageing…

What better teachers could an actor have?

The Ghost of My Dead Father

2011-09-13T22:18:00.000-04:00

A mannever grows up until his father dies. - African Proverb

In my mind’s eye…

I see my father lying face down on thebedroom carpet.

He’s gone.

He was probably dead before he hit thefloor.

The medic who arrived within 20 minuteslistens to my father’s heart for one minute and feels for his pulse for anotherminute. He examines for signs of breathing, looks at the pupils to check thereis no response to a light he shines into my father’s eyes. There is none.

In my mind’s eye…

My father’s naked body lies on a steeltable.

The pathologist starts with an incisionfrom the sternum to the pubic bone. He cuts through the skin, fat and musclesto expose the rib cage. Then he cuts through some of the ribs for access to theupper organs.

He removes my father’s throat, tongue,lungs, heart and aorta. He removes his liver, stomach and pancreas. Finally hetakes out his kidneys, the remainder of the aorta, bowels, bladder andreproductive organs.

He takes them over to a bench and goesthrough each of the organs for more detailed analysis.  Next, he focuses hisattention on my father’s brain.

The mortuary technician makes anincision at the back of my father’s head with a scalpel and lifts up the scalpto reveal the skull.

With a hand-held saw he cuts throughthe skull. He takes out my father’s brain and places it in a steel bowl for thepathologist.

After the examination, they place theorgans – as best they can - back into the body and sew up the incisions.

They clean my father’s body to removeall traces of fluid or blood.

They finish by washing his hair.  Hiswhite soft hair.

In my mind’s eye…

The embalmer takes my father’s body outof the fridge, removes it from the body bag, and gently cleans it withdisinfectant. He massages his hands and limbs to work out the rigor mortis.

He makes an incision under my father’sarmpit and injects the formaldehyde. As the formaldehyde flows through myfather’s body, his white translucent skin gains color and he becomes morelifelike.

The embalmer then drains my father’sbody of blood and fluid from his organs and chest cavity and cuts just underthe rib cage. Inserting a trocar, attached to a suction pump, he punctures theinternal organs and removes the contents of my father’sintestines, bowels and bladder. A litre of cavity fluid is distributed betweenmy father’s thoracic and abdominal cavities.

Next, he packs his throat and nose withcotton wool to stop fluid seepage, and then puts my father’s dentures in placeand stitches his mouth closed from the inside. He dries my father’s pale blueeyes and inserts plastic half-moon caps under the lids to help them hold theirshape.

Finally he washes and styles his hair,shaves him, removes nasal and ear hair, and trims his nails.

He uses a small amount of make-up on myfather’s face.

My father looks as if he’s sleeping.

In my mind’s eye.

My half-brother Rupert talks well atthe funeral. His speech is well prepared and movingly describes thefather he knew.  My brother Robin, who is one year younger than me, sits calmly in the second row pew. I stand up and speak the speech that Rupert hadn’t wanted me tomake. 

I describe the father Iknew.

He’s a father that Rupert and my otherhalf-brother Russell - the much later second family - never encountered.

I leave out the negative side of myfather: a quick violent temper, the beatings, the shouting, the belittling…

I describe the father that Robin and I saw fromafar.

Our father of the theatre.  A man whocould produce, direct, act, market and run a theatre and its companysingle-handedly. An imposing man who could roar like a lion, instill fearin the toughest of men just by his presence and energy, who commanded respecton a small Channel Island for his good productions – not only of Agatha Christiesand Philip King farces, but also Shakespeare, Beckett and Shaw – who couldattract famous actors like Dennis Price and Dame Edith Evans to come over andperform. A theatre man who was able to get those bums on seats…

A man who was tall and handsome, withlarge pale blue eyes, blue black hair and a thin sensuous mouth.

I have no prepared speech.

I talk as I remember him… as I wouldhave talked to him, in the slight jocular tone that made him smile.

The photo on top of his coffin is thefather of my adulthood.  The service ends.  Music plays: Barbara Streisand, Ithink, whom my father couldn’t stand to look at but loved to hear sing.

A curtain draws in front of hiscoffin.  A blood red curtain.

The same color as the curtain in myfather’s theatre, which closed on those magical productions of my childhood.

The last thing I see are his eyestwinkling in the photograph on top of his coffin.

The curtain closes.

In my mind’s eye…

Irony. I find life is full of it.

If God exists – my father neverbelieved in him – then he/she has a sharp sense of the ironic.

Receiving the news of his death, I wasin the middle of acting in the Toronto production of The Railway Children.

I played the perfect father. 

Unlike the London creation that hadbeen installed inside the old Eurostar terminal in Waterloo Station, ourCanadian production was set up inside a huge long tent. It was animpressive feat of theatre building under the shadow of the iconic Canadian building, the CN Tower.

Some endeavors seem to be cursed fromthe beginning. It seems our Toronto production had some serious bad juju. Itstarted at the dress rehearsals with the fall of one of the actors off a truckand continued throughout the run. Two broken arms, one broken toe, three brokenrelationships, five bereavements, Carolyn’s disc injury, Craig's torn meniscus,Michael's sprained wrist, Rona's concussion, Benn hit by the train… and allplaying out inside a tent in the hottest summer for decades. The airconditioning could barely cope, even when replaced with more powerful andexpensive models. The temperature outside hovered around the 30s for much ofthe summer.  The producers tried to make it work, but eventually they decidedthe show should finish while we were still ahead. We ended as the longest-runningplay to an audience over 300 in Toronto theatre history.

But… the good far outweighed the bad.

Through it all, we had an excellent,unique show and a wonderful and talented cast who got along famously. Imade some exciting new friends. Playing in the centre of Toronto – even in thesummer heat – was thrilling. And finally, the production brought us downfrom our life beside the wild northern lake and back into a lovely house and gardenin the city.

The show ending - earlier than we weremade to believe - puts us in a vulnerable position as far as cash flow isconcerned. Maybe we’re foolish optimists, but like Mr Micawber, I always believethat things will work out in the end.

And other opportunities have openedup. 

I have landed the part in my last threeauditions, all of them TV and film, an area I definitely wanted to ventureinto more: an episode of Nikita and Lost Girl and an in-house video forKPMG. I have met new casting directors, new directors and of course I amin the right place now for my acting work. No more round trips of 10hours for a 5-minute audition.  Yes, thinking about it, I have a great deal forwhich to thank The Railway Children, Toronto.

One of the last scenes in the play isthe return of the Father and the famous line cried out by his young daughter:“Daddy, oh my Daddy.”

A daughter’s relationship with herfather is different from a father and his son. During that scene it was myeldest daughter’s face that came into my mind… and the two young faces of mynew daughters. “You can have fun with a son, but you gotta be a father toa girl.” 

The nearest my father and I came to this kind of moment was sort ofcrazy and backwards. I had been at my father and step-mother’s home for acouple of weeks, 35 years old, homeless and recovering from a brokenrelationship. My father took me aside and gently told me that he wantedme to leave.  When I asked him why, he frowned and struggled to speak. Finally he said:  “We’re just too much alike.”

In my mind’s eye…

The chamber where my father’s coffineventually arrives – a retort – islined with heat-resistant refractory bricks. The coffin enters quickly to avoidheat loss through the top-opening door.

The oven burns at 1,600 degreesFahrenheit. My father’s wooden coffin soon collapses, exposing his bodydirectly to the flames.

His skin and hair at once scorch, char,and burn. His skin and abdominal muscles char and split. Destruction of thesoft tissues gradually exposes parts of his skeleton.

His incineration is completed in 104minutes.

Finally his dry bone fragments areswept out of the retort and pulverized to process them into "ashes."

In the end, all that is left of myfather is a mound of fine sand-like texture… ‘turning the accomplishment ofmany years into an hour glass.’

His ashes, I believe, are to bescattered in a local cemetery. It may have happened already.

I say this because I don’t really know.

What became obvious during the funeralis that my father’s second family had decided to take complete control of hisdeath and the manner of his leaving. My brother, Robin, my cousin Nikkiand I were the old family… and as such we were part of his old life. Hisold life had been upsetting and unsettling and my stepmother, naturally, was tobe protected from any troubling memories.

More surprising was my two halfbrothers – who I had never called ‘half’ – made it clear that our fraternal relationshipwas also at an end. It appears that my father was the glue that held thewhole fragile and tempestuous family together.

Surprising, but completelyunderstandable.

We were part of my father’s theatreworld – a world my brothers thought shallow and false, full of pretentioussouls who emoted and fluttered around without contributing anything to societyexcept a kind of colorful nonsense. And who am I to say they’re wrong?

But…

I know my father loved thisworld.

In a theatre my father was a man in hiselement. He loved those 'shallow' souls, those insecure actors, those glamorousand ‘false’ actresses. He understood who they were, why they were driven to beactors.  He had escaped from a drab 1950s England and –ironically – discovered,in the country where I now live – in Canada – the world of glitter and lights,a people living on the edge and in the present moment.

It was here he discovered hisdirectors’ eye.

“It’s about making pictures on stage,”he once said, “and let the actors do the rest.”

In short he fell in love…

… and it was the love of his life.

In my mind’s eye…

I see only the good memories. Thecricket on the beach, the cuddles in the morning, carrying my exhausted childbody to bed after a night at the theatre, the sudden kissing on the lips thatstartled his teenage son. The plays we worked on together when I was a youngactor. Working through the night to get a set ready in time for thefollowing night’s opening performance. The magical Christmases that healways made for us and that he adored. His sentimentality.

His kindness to anyone in trouble… anda lot of the times I was that person in trouble. 
He was a puritan who loved thelight of art, and that dichotomy pulled at him all his life.

In my mind’s eye…

I see my father in his better light,but I also feel his darker side within me, his hot blood pumping through myveins.

In the end, our final time together wasnot in the chapel with his dead body lying in a wooden coffin. 

Last year I flew back home and spentthree days with him.

We didn’t talk much, but I knew he washappy I was there.  I made him laugh. He gently teased me.

He told stories of his theatre time inCanada. He never tired of telling those stories.

I left him with huge sorrow.

I knew I would never see my fatheragain.

Hamlet:  My father—methinks I see my father—

Horatio:  Where, my lord?

Hamlet:  In my mind's eye, Horatio.

Horatio:  I saw him once, 'a was a goodly king.

Hamlet:  'A was a man, take him for all in all,  I shall not lookupon his like again.

Beautiful Beginnings - Sad Endings

2011-06-17T13:03:00.009-04:00

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

It wasn’t much too look at.

A small blue hut in a line of other small multicolored huts overlooking a pebbly beach that bordered – on most days – a slate grey sea.

A railway line ran between the huts and the main road. The only access was a private dirt track guarded by a padlocked gate. A small artistic community set up camp here, treasuring the peace and relative isolation given by these architectural dinosaurs of forgotten childhoods.

A tiny square wooden hut, with big windows at the front that had boards you could fit over them. A small gas cooker in a corner. Two small beds for afternoon siestas and illegal sleep-overs. Books, cool-boxes, tins of various foodstuffs, hot chocolate, coffee, swim wear, beach stuff, my grandmother’s old home-made changing towel, digestive biscuits, an old radio, torches… and ‘Big Bird’ - a huge beach umbrella that was planted and unfurled outside, when the sun shone. The heat in front of the hut could rival the Mediterranean on occasion.

Inside it was dark and cosy: the slight musty smell of damp on everything mingling with the evocative sea air.

My mother bought it over 25 years ago for a small fraction of what she sold it for.

And therein lies the heartache.

Yesterday I found out that she HAD sold it, the small little blue hut that was such a huge part of our family’s lives.

It was here that my daughter Samantha first saw a full moon shining on the water. Moonlight turning water to shimmering silver, alive with thousands of small glittering fish.

It was here I stayed when I learned the lines for Oleanna, Kiss of the Spider Woman, A Woman of No Importance and Single Spies.

Waking up. Making coffee.

Plunging in for a cold morning swim.
Drying off. Cooking an English breakfast.

Mostly alone except for a dog walker or a fisherman.

Then sitting outside, drumming lines into my head, before swimming again, battling waves, spluttering speeches towards the horizon.
And later… walking the beach at low tide, mumbling more lines, startling the few swimmers and small children.

Cramming lines until the sun set over the ever-changing sea.

It was to here my two eldest children, Charley and Samantha, escaped from the city.

Where my granddaughter Izzy met my brothers’ children.

Where lives were caught up on, analyzed, where love was exchanged and sometimes lost.

Over the years it became a fixed meeting-point, a place of peace and calm reflection… and an escape from our complicated lives.

It was here. At this small hut.

My mother loves tennis…and I mean LOVES it. The French Open, Queens, and Wimbledon were all approaching, and even though the job she had over many years had been reduced to three days over weekends, – at 73 – she had had enough.

She emailed me a short note to apologize and to explain why it had to be done. We had always joked about the hut being my inheritance.

I am sad my new young daughters will never experience the hut’s magical timelessness.

Everything is transient, I know.

Life flows on, but damn it… I am going to take a moment here.

I haven’t felt at home in many places these past 20 years.

I am sad for the loss of this home of mine.

Goodbye beach hut.

You were a small precious piece of my adult life.

But…

I am glad she sold the hut.

The sale affords her two years of living without worry.

It buys her time: at home with her tennis and films…and with her husband George who is in amazing health at 89… but still… 89 is deep into the sixth of the seven ages of man.

I would have done the same thing in her position.

I am my mother’s son.

The city.

Toronto.
When we moved from country to town I was apprehensive.

My daughters, Maia and Aphra, have only ever known the big sky, the dirt roads, the gentle sounds of nature and its silence… the ability to come and go from our cottage as and where they pleased.

So we watched with relief as the girls roamed the newly rented house and garden and claimed it as their own.

They behave as if they had always lived here.

The Girls in the Garden

The times when the girls are happiest are trips to out local shops and downtown… on the subway or the streetcar.

Everything to them is new and interesting.

I enjoy listening to their observations as we walk… by houses with strange garden ornaments… or shops with displays that make their heads swivel.

And Heidi has gratefully settled into her writing and the life of a city wife/ mother/writer.

The house is a wonderful gift.

It has three bedrooms. We occupy only two of them as Aphra still sleeps with us. The third is a retreat. Heidi installed herself in the biggest bedroom with her desk and laptop. Her ‘office’ – her writing space.

The basement is my space with TV, Xbox 360, laptop, guitar. All the toys… but it continually fails as a retreat. The girls love to play down there… and Maia is very fond of her DVDs.

And then there’s the joy of our garden.

The previous tenant was a horticulturist and so the back garden is a green oasis of exotic plants and long stretch of lawn. We also inherited a barbeque and outdoor table and chairs. Our hammock is slung up between the fence and a large tree. We have THREE compost bins.

After a horrendous wet spring, summer arrived bang on the first of June and days are spent sipping coffee on the deck, playing in the tent, swinging in the hammock, the girls playing in the paddling pool, barbeques in the evening… It is heaven.

The Railway Children was the enabler of our move back to the city after two years hidden away up north in a cottage on a lake…

I was going to write here about the Railway Children and it’s move from London to Toronto. I was going to describe the enormous effort and work in transporting the show into a tent into the middle of downtown Toronto. I was going to explain my joy on acting in a company of wonderful actors.

But I can’t.

Something happened.

And then the phone rings…

It is 5.30am.

The news from my brother Rupert is bad.

Very bad.

My father has died.

It is long expected.

The comfort is that he was at home and it was quick… a massive heart attack.

He was 82.

Life has been full of beautiful beginnings this spring..

The birth of my grandson, Adam, to my daughter Samantha.

My youngest brother Russell marrying his long-time partner, smart and beautiful, Michelle.

Our move to the city.

Life throws up ironies all the time. The latest one is processing the death of my father whilst playing an idealized father in The Railway Children.

There are a lot of things to say about my relationship with my father.

He was a man of the theatre. He’s the reason I’m an actor.

He managed theatres. He directed plays. He acted.

He raised me. He was the one I wanted to please.

He wasn’t easy to please.

He was a man of many contradictions.

I loved him.

my father, with my daughter Sam and son Charley...and me.

Now though is the time to remember and quietly grieve.

It’s a rite of passage for us all, the death of a parent.

It’s not about who he was…. but how I remember him.

I am a grown-up at last.

I am a contradictory man.

I am my father’s son.

Last Night I Strangled My Wife

2011-03-09T01:57:00.009-05:00

“Are you afraid, Lilly? Many people fear this river. What is fear? A feeling… of agitation or anxiety? Apprehension? Dread? Reverence towards a supreme power? The bible depicts two different kinds of fear. There is the fear of command. This kind of fear involves honor, respect and awe. There is the fear of death. Many are slaves to the fear of death. But the fear of death can be conquered, Lily. I’ve seen it… on the faces of fallen soldiers. One must realize it is inevitable. It is merely the gateway to bliss and the association of Our Lord, Jesus Christ…

Such a precious child…”

Last night I strangled my wife.

She pushed me to it.

She wouldn’t stop.

Playing the piano at an hour she knows is precious… for my reading and relaxation. She refused to explain what she had done… with her locket, the locket I gave her … the locket she swore never to remove.

So I throttled her.

Wrapped her in a tarp and threw her in the river.

I then killed the gardener with his sickle.

At the house, I smashed in the head of my 6 year old son.

This morning I finally caught up with my 10 year old daughter.

She saw me do it…she said.

I strangled her in my study… threw her body into the river and watched her sink.

Now, maybe, I can gain some peace.

Just a sip… from the little green fairy… and back to reading… my bible…

I couldn’t go on… living like that.

‘Yet each man kills the thing he loves’…

Last night.

I killed all I love.

Last night…

I strangled my wife.

I’m playing an absinth addict. He’s a doctor who tends to the soldiers of the Confederacy. After the Civil War, he returns to his plantation home and the ghosts of his past.

Sitting in a director’s chair taking a break from filming, I’m wrapping blankets around me, trying to keep warm and fill the long hours of waiting.

I’m in South Carolina shooting a short film – a ghost story - called Dreadful Sorry. We have a huge crew and top-of-the-line equipment for such a small film. My admiration for good film actors has increased a hundredfold. I don’t understand how they are able to keep their concentration when there is so much technical sound and chaos all around.

No wonder actors like Daniel Day-Lewis stay in character all the time.

I feel quite inadequate.

I cannot stay in the mind of a drug-addicted psychopath for 24 hours a day.

It may be not as convincing on film, but I have to take a pass on this one.

However I have remembered the technical acting know-how from all the TV and film I did in my youth. Those days of ‘rushes’ and ‘hair in the gate’ are long gone. Now the film is immediately available for playback and the High Definition camera means little make-up and the absence of large amounts of lighting.
The crew seemed impressed by my ability to hit my marks, turn my face at the right angle and that I always know my lines.

I remind them of Robert Downey Jnr., they say.

I wish I had half his talent.

I am enjoying the film process. I’ve always reveled in being a part of a crew. My old friend Robert Richmond is directing and Dionne O’Dell, his wife, is the writer. Louis Buteli from Aquila days is also performing. It is like the old New York days and a happy reunion.

I avoid the playbacks and hope that I’m not overacting. Although I think it’s quite hard to go over the top with a madman like my dark friend – the character called Conrad.

I hope it’s a great success for my friends.

I’m excited to see the finished result.

If only I didn’t have to watch myself.

After this I fly back to Canada and move our family from our lakeside home in Northern Ontario to Toronto.

On agreeing we should return to the city, we wrote down our wish-list.

Use of a yard.

On site laundry.

Two bedrooms.

Living space on a main floor.

Near to The Junction area of the city and close to Heidi’s sister

We then waited for the ‘universe’ to do its work.

Eventually we received everything we wanted on our wish-list… and more.

We are now moving to a three bedroom house on a dead-end street with a large back garden and a basement.

The rent is the same as our last apartment in New York.

It is a miracle to us.

And yet we are not surprised, just reassured that we are going where we are meant to be. We have great belief in our own instincts and follow them enthusiastically.
The move to the lake…for Maia… the birth of Aphra… was a wonderful gift. We didn’t know, as we made the move north, how we would survive. We just knew we would be taken care of.

The move to the city is not so blind.
I start rehearsing the London transfer of The Railway Children in Toronto in 10 days. My contract is set to run for nine months.

It’s perfect.

It gives me time with the girls in the day… and Heidi time to write. Her novel is complete - just the final edits to finish and the next one is already mapped out in her head.

It means we can stay together as a family.

It affords us the luxury of this miracle house for at least a year.

And it feels so right for both of us, this return to urban living.

I feel reenergized. The playing of the huge part of Kemp in Vigil last year clarified so many unanswered questions in my mind.
The biggest question:
Did I still want to act…enough? The answer?

Yes.

And I didn’t want to act…

I needed to act.

An actor is who I am.

And so last night…

I strangled my wife.

Me, Dionne and Louis on set

Christmas 2010

2010-12-22T17:11:00.016-05:00

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. ~Louis Hector Berlioz

Am I ready for this?
Living in the country has brought me so much peace.
I have been given a great gift, surrounded by family, my wonderful girls and the most breathtaking nature.
But am I ready to live this reclusive life…to leave acting and be a family man living on a lake in the middle of a beautiful nowhere?

The little town of St Charles is … small.

Five, may be six streets.

Christmas video

We speed over the back roads built by those first settlers for 11 kilometers, past the pine and beech, the big Northern Ontario rock, past the farmers fields, now bed down under the winter snow - like white icing on a Christmas cake, - and in ten minutes we drive into our closest civilization.

Jackie, a woman of a certain age, oversees the post office.
She is the Aunt of Matt.
Matt is the partner of Becky, Heidi’s middle sister. There are two other sisters and two brothers.
Jackie will phone if there’s a package waiting for us She instructs the mailmen into which box to leave our letters.
We are not marked on any mailbox.
Jackie mistrusts my Englishness.
The town is predominantly French Canadian and we have a history.
Apparently.
However, I am, - in a roundabout way - ‘family’.
I am tolerated.
If I go into the post office, I will bring Maia or Aphra.
Jackie is a sucker for their innocent cuteness.

There is a very welcome LCBO in the town.
Liquor is strictly regulated in Canada. The Liquor Control Board of Ontario sells most of it. Beer can be bought at certain other stores, but, in the main, the LCBO controls it all.
Alison, who usually serves me, always asks if I have air miles. I always reply that I’m working on it. We then discuss her Volkswagen beetle, which she knows I covet.
She also knows I like Jacobs Creek red and white wine, which she orders in for me... special.

Sparky’s is a small huntin’ and fishin’ shop.
Sparky, the owner, has one arm .
I have never had the courage to ask him how he lost his other one.
The prosthetic one he now wears sports a shiny hook at the end, which he uses with great dexterity.
If you want to go huntin’ moose, turkey, or fish the nearby lakes, including ours, then you go to one-armed Sparky.

The church of St Charles has a brilliant white steeple that blends in seamlessly with the winter landscape.
It stands proudly on top of a rock.
It began its life on October 20th, 1905. From then on, the settlers would gather the family, harness their horse and buggy and attend mass Sunday. Not only would they attend mass but they would also listen eagerly to the latest news of the area which was announced by the 'yeller' who would be standing on the steps of the church following each service.

‘Big Joe’, who runs the convenience store hardly looked at me when I first arrived.
Gradually, as he came to realize I wasn’t a holidaymaker but a local, his mood softened.
It melted completely when I brought in our two year old, Maia - all golden curls and devastating smile.
We live in the same area on the lake, that his family owned over many years.
We go to Joe’s to do the Lottery and to rent the newer DVDs.
Older ones we borrow from the library.

St Charles is blessed with a supermarket, not always the case for small towns in these parts.
Previously called the Co-op store (Foodland), the St Charles Foodmarket was in danger of being closed down, but new Korean owners came in and with support from the townspeople it still provides a vital place to get those much-needed supplies.
The stores in Sudbury (an hour’s drive away) are cheaper, so if you want to do a big food shop you’d go there, but if it’s in-between groceries you’re after, then it wouldn’t make sense to travel all that way after paying for fuel.
The Supermarket stocks not only food, but hardware tools, clothes, a video library and a coffee area, where you can sit and sip your coffee whilst watching people go through the checkout.

The town also has a Fire Station, the obligatory hockey Arena, the bilingual Library(where I’m writing this with the odd break to surf it’s high speed internet) attached to the school and a Medical Centre.

At the Christmas Parade a couple of nights ago, its population came together, braving the -18 temperatures, watching the eight brightly lit Christmas floats drive past. Afterwards we all drove over to the community centre and sat down for festive Spaghetti Bolognese and watched the children line up to meet a slightly too merry Father Christmas.

It’s a small town.

It’s a long way from New York, my favorite city.

I returned to there the summer to play King Henry in an adaptation of Henry lV part 1 & 2 for the Summer Theatre of New Canaan.
As soon as I walked out of Port Authority Bus station and into Manhattan’s hustling and bustling, I felt completely at home.
The experience of playing a King was a strange one.
Playing a king makes you feel isolated from everyone, and when you reach my age of middle years, younger actors tend to treat you with a mixture of respect and irreverence… that is as it should be.

King Henry lV

May be it was the outdoor theatre;

Or may be it was the long first speech done in Presidential style, high up on a rostrum and with a microphone, but I never felt entirely at ease with the King.
The first night I jumped part of the first speech.
I had a brief reoccurrence of stage fright that I hadn’t experienced since my 20s.
A few hiccups in previews made me extra nervous.

It was clear. I was underprepared.
Before I arrived for rehearsals and during the run-up to performance I wasn’t as concentrated as I should have been.
I had been lazy.
It showed in performance.

So… it was with some trepidation that I accepted the role of Kemp in Vigil for STC in Sudbury, our local big town, here, in Northern Ontario.
The Sudbury Theatre, an excellent regional theatre, serves a large area.
I had seen a couple of productions on my arrival and was impressed by the high standard of production and acting.
I was flattered and pleased to be offered work there.
But the part was daunting.

The Creative team for Vigil, STC

Vigil is a two-hour rant, rave and rambling by the strange lonely character, Kemp, who comes to look after his dying and mostly silent aunt.

I had never tackled anything on this scale before…at least not when it was just me doing all the talking.
I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off.
I wasn’t even certain my memory would take in all those words.

But… it was time to find out, to leave the comfort zone and put myself through a true theatrical test once again.

I started learning the script in July and had it memorized by the second week of September.
I then grabbed the opportunity for a brief trip back to England to see my family and most of all to meet, at last, my Dee Dee(Daughter’s daughter).
On my return, I threw myself into Vigil preparations.

My routine: I woke up at 4am and went through the script aloud – well, whispering, so as not to wake the girls – whilst washing, drying-up and cleaning the downstairs kitchen and living-room. The character of Kemp would be a compulsive cleaner..
I also wanted the words so ingrained that when we started our two week rehearsal process, I could be thrown any action and not be distracted by the script.

When rehearsals started, the director, David Savoy, guided me to a more humane interpretaion than I had been essaying, but I found I was so well-prepared, that it was an easy shift to make.

Performing it in the rehearsal room, my kitchen or out in the Gazebo at the end of the lake was one thing.
The real test would be in front of an audience. (Link to my interview with CBC )

Vigil was a great success.
The audiences and reviews were extremely positive.
For me, it was a reassurance. I could still lose myself in a character and find my way around a stage.
It was confirmation that acting was (still) what I loved above all things and that the theatre was my natural home.

Vigil promo

A week later I was cast as the Father and Doctor in The Railway Children. This successful London production is being brought to Toronto. It means work for nine months from March 2011.
It also means leaving our lake home.

The reason for being here was always to ease Maia's transition and also for the surrounding support for Heidi in her pregnancy, childbirth and early baby care.
We had only planned to be here for a nine months, but we have stayed for a year and a half.

It is a wrench to leave.

But…

It is time.

I am ready.

Aphra Anena

2010-06-24T13:06:00.010-04:00

It’s 26 years ago since I last picked up a newborn baby of mine. In the past three years I have moved countries, got married, adopted a 1 year old, and now…

For years I have been uninterested in other people’s babies. When someone has shown me their newborn child, I’ve struggled to show an interest, let alone coo in delight. Most newborns I have seen are downright ugly. I’m probably reacting to my own inadequacies in fatherhood with the two children from my first marriage? For a long time I was running ahead of a painful past, keeping my acting career the centre of attention.

An actor’s life is strange compared with other artists.
If the actor is solitary and naturally insular then he has to tread carefully.
How does he practice when he’s alone and in between parts? He cannot, as musicians, writers or painters, work on his 'art' to any degree of satisfaction. He uses himself as his canvas, his blank sheet of paper, his instrument. A part of him is always on the outside watching, storing away: analysing an emotion he might feel, a new interesting stranger he meets, a unique physical walk he observes. This inward-looking characteristic cannot be healthy unless he is personally moving forward and negating it with an outward-looking mentality.

When I started teaching nine years ago, I was overwhelmed. Giving knowledge I had garnered to young students was immensely satisfying. At the same time as learning ‘giving’ was deeply rewarding, my belief in the power of the intuition was re-enforced. When going into different colleges and university workshops, I soon realised there was no point arriving with a set teaching module; it had to be fluid and adaptable to meet the needs of that particular class. Besides, it was more fun to work on the edge and use the combined energy of that unique class, the size and acoustics of that distinctive space, the feeling and time and mood on that particular day. Being open, giving and working on instinct became a mantra I started to use more and more on stage.

And then, just as I was making ready for a singular life, I fell in love… and not surprisingly those same attributes became invaluable.

So I came to Canada to give Heidi the support she needed for her last year in university and to start a new adventure. It felt instinctively the right move to make.
When we were asked by Maia’s parents to take her on, we waited three months and then made the decision… instinctively. The decision despite knowing we were already expecting our first child.

A teacher at RADA took improvisation classes. One of his most frightening exercises was to give us a Complete Works of Shakespeare and stand us in front of our fellow classmates. We’d then have to pick a speech and at some point go off the script and improvise. The rest of the class had to guess when we were no longer using Shakespeare’s words. If one of us faltered, he would jump up, bound to the front and shout in our ear: “Go on, jump off that cliff!”

We planned the birth of our baby, the way we planned our wedding.
We put all the elements into place and envisioned what we wanted and trusted it would come about.
Heidi spent months working with hypno-birthing CDs, and I helped Heidi’s cousin Darlene and husband Dave redecorate the top floor of their house.
We wanted a home birth but our lake house was too far from the hospital. And then Darlene offered her bedrooms.
We wanted a drug-free home birth.
Heidi’s sister, Marja was our Doula.
We hoped I would be able to be there.
We wished for a girl.
We prayed for our favourite midwife to be available.
We longed for a serene calm birth.

And just like our wedding, all our wishes came true.

Aphra was born March 2nd 2010 at 2 minutes to 2am.

She is named after playwright and proto-novelist Aphra Behn, the first woman to earn her living as a professional writer in the English language.
She was the most beautiful ugly newborn baby. Her first sleep was on my chest.
She is serene, calm and wise. She sleeps through the night, and feeds with minimal fuss.
She has my sallow skin and big blue eyes but thankfully has inherited her mother’s beauty and tranquil demeanour.

And now…

Soon after Aphra was born Spring arrived.
The ice on the lake melted in March. The snow disappeared on a sunny April day
Looking out at the sky one night, ribbons of green and blue ethereal light danced above my head - my first look at the Northern Lights.
May arrived and the brown grass turned a vibrant green. The landscape exploded into a verdant nursery of shooting buds and growing.
The circle of life comes around once more.
My good friend, Dilys, died nearly a year to the day of Aphra‘s birth.
There is a symmetry and balance in life and nature. I’m more aware of its workings here at the lake.
Life is fluid. Life is flexible.
As Darwin observed, it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

There is no plan.
And that’s fine.
Maia and Aphra are with us and they grow and thrive in our little piece of Canadian Eden.
We are following our instincts and trusting a benevolent universe.
And in times of uncertainty I still hear those words in my ear:
“Go on, jump off that cliff!”

It’s 26 years ago since I last picked up a newborn baby of mine. In the past three years I have moved countries, got married, adopted a 1 year old... and became a father to Aphra Anena.

Lupercalia

2010-02-13T22:25:00.003-05:00

I am not at my best.

Waiting.

We’re waiting…

Not long now until our baby enters this world.
It’s an uncertain world at the moment.
Life here at the Lake is frozen, like the landscape. A cold wind is blowing though our pastoral life. The family homes are on the market, talk of bankruptcy is in the air.
We are a Thomas Hardy novel, knowing we couldn’t make this last forever, but hoping to make it through to the Spring.
Work? There have been close calls, but nothing… and nothing locally either - although ‘locally’ is an hour’s drive to the nearest realistic place of employment.
Nothing.
I’m not acting.
I am not at my best.

“So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.”

We survived up to now through good fortune and the helping hand of both our parents. I am humbled and grateful for their consideration but, of course, feel inadequate I have not landed the job that will keep us afloat. An actor’s life is all well and good, but I am the only actor that lives in this area. The rest are five hours drive away to the south.
Oh well…it was always a gamble.

I strive to remain in the present moment, however…even if the moment is in the month of February (which, as you know by now, I hate). There are many special moments to savor. I trust my initial instinct to come here. I know that for Maia’s transition into our lives and Heidi’s pregnancy, this small cottage next to the lake, with family on both sides, remains the ideal spot. To see Maia put on her boots at 22 months, walk out the front door and trudge hundreds of yards on her own through the snow to Grandma’s or to Aunt Marja’s and her beloved cousin Wyatt is a priceless and precious moment. She steps into her boots, asks for her coat, toddles out through the door I’m holding open for her… and she is gone. The run of all the land here is hers.

We’ve lived on the lake for over 6 months, and we have never locked our door.

New Years Eve: I run outside and attempt to do a cartwheel in knee-deep snow, a family tradition started by Rebekah, one of Heidi’s amazing and beautiful sisters. As I come back onto our deck, wet and tingling, I wonder if it’s juvenile for a man of my age to be still doing cartwheels.

And then I hear it:
A cry across the lake.
I hold my breath and listen. The quiet - like being muffled in a heavy blanket - pounds in my ears - an immense nothingness.
And then, on the wind, an answering chorus.
They’re further to the South, deep in the forest; the unmistakable cries of… Wolves!

The howls skate across the icy lake, climb the stairs of the deck and pierce my body. It’s thrilling. The stars shine brighter, a blue moon glimmering. Oh, you should hear them… the children of the night.

A late January morning: We are driving down the potted snow-blown track that is the 5 kilometer approach to our lake. We are on our way into town for a midwife appointment. I have risen early - 4am - to light the fire. It is -20 outside and our cottage struggles at this temperature. The car has been plugged into the electrical point at the side of the house overnight and so starts easily. After 10 minutes it is de-iced and warm enough to sit in its interior. The kid - Maia - loves the car and is sitting quietly in her car seat, wrapped all ‘tozy‘ (Maia cannot pronounce her k sounds) in a blanket. Later we install the new baby seat. The rules say it must be rear-facing and in the back. This may be safe but to my mind is totally impractical for parents driving on their own. The car seat can’t be over five years old either, and the child or baby is strapped in and restrained like Hannibal Lecter.

I seem to remember that in another life - many many lives ago - the new baby was put in a wicker basket in the front seat.

Now, I’m driving slowly, foot not touching the brake, the wipers on, clearing the light snow, peering through the dirty windscreen trying to avoid the bumps and potholes… and then a movement ahead. My eyes focus quickly. First sight and I think I’m seeing a runaway horse cantering across the road. May be it has escaped from the reindeer farm on our left. I have seen the horses being ridden before across the fields in the Fall. Has one of them made a break for freedom? A turn towards me and the shoulders come into focus. It isn’t a horse. The bulk of the animal is bigger, heavier, and the shoulders, powerful muscle hunched up into the head.

“Look ahead, it’s a moose!” I cry to my thawing family.

But now he’s gone.
“Where?” Heidi asks.
“Noose?” Maia mimics, pushing forward against her restraints.
“It was there - ahead - across the road…it crossed the road. Unmistakable… oh God, look another one!”

We are closer now and this one gallops, spraying ice and snow in its wake. As we come level to their crossing, we look to the fields out the side windows. Nothing…just the ice-covered bush under a yellow sky.

And then, a brown blur of movement.
They break out of the bushes and we see… their backs rise… the shoulders powering their heavy limbs. We watch in awe. We screw them into our memories.

The wild race to be out of the open, away from danger.

The heavy fur… the huge head… the foggy breath…The snow parting like waves…

The onward rush… a manic dash…

For the safety of a distant frozen forest.

I think you either have to embrace Christmas or run for cover, screaming. I have always chosen to celebrate it to the full.

This Christmas was different. We have a child.

The kid took the whole madness in her stride. Fascinated by the business of opening presents, she gave each one the correct amount of attention before turning to the next. She was interested in the lights and the decorations on the tree, but she didn’t destroy them and the tree remained standing. Of course, where we are at the moment is impossibly perfect - a Christmas card scene. The cottage lights glow warmly across deep snow, and the winter hush - except for the water roaring over the distant dam - is a relaxing holiday balm.

Christmas was fun with Maia. More settled and more secure, she is calmer but still strong and fiercely independent. Having her with us ensured the magic of Christmas was enhanced.
Heidi and I had our best Christmas on our own in New York on the Upper West Side. There was no noise - just times of quiet, reading, writing, watching movies, walks in Central Park and excursions around a festive Manhattan.
It was perfect.
But that was a different time.
We are no longer two.
We are no longer free.
We are three… and are about to become four.

Life has slowed. It’s the small details that you notice.

One morning I come out on a brilliant blue day, cold and sharp as a razor, glistening snow. There are no clouds, but snow is in the air.

Wait.
Snow?
No, it’s the wind blowing…but there is no wind.
I look around.
Ice.
Ice falling, falling everywhere. The tiny delicate particles, slowly, gracefully descending, like thousands of winged fairies. They settle on the snowy countryside: a silvery glittering, an icy blue sheen.
Our world is sparkling.

Around Christmas, the vibrancy of the evergreen forest stands out against the snowy white. Now, in February, the colour is duller, a faded dusty green. Everything, even the colours, hibernates in February.

There's a satisfaction in heating the cottage with our own wood. The daily ritual is to grab the logs from their storage areas outside and bring them into the house. Maia watches with interest as I stagger inside, logs piled in my arms. She runs ahead crying, ‘Beep beep’.
To make the kindling, I chop the flatter pieces with a large axe outside, hammering them into the snow first, so they won’t move. I find swinging an axe good exercise… and emotionally therapeutic.
The winter has been mild so far, which is to say we have not hit -30.
Yet.

Her tummy precedes her, like a basket ball. The baby, due in a week, kicks and squirms inside her. For the past couple of months Heidi’s been working on her hynobabies discs - a course of self-hypnotism to manage her ‘birthing waves’ and give her a natural anesthesia.

We are hoping to have the baby at our cousins Darlene and Dave’s home in town, an hour’s drive. I have helped decorate the upstairs bedrooms, ripping down ceilings and walls, plastering and priming, investing enough energy there to make it feel like a home from home… for when the time comes.
We will leave a little earlier.
Everything is ready.

There’s a lot of stuff you have to pack up for a home birth. Two tubs and a few bags lay by our front door. A birthing pool has been left at the birth house. We wanted to have the birth in our home out here on the lake, but no midwife will come out this far and it’s too great a distance from the hospital.

So we wait.
Heidi waits for a certain day. The house in town will be ready. The Doula, Heidi’s sister Marja, won‘t be due to teach her piano lessons. We are more likely to have our preferred midwife.
I also wait… for a sign of work…

But there is another sign, a kind of miracle. We hardly dare believe it. At the eleventh hour, when the wind was biting its keenest…and then…

The houses and the land may not have to be sold.
There may be a chance for work for a few members of the family.
The Arena, home of the old family business, could be bought and turned into something exciting.
A vicarious pleasure for me.
It’s not the acting work I seek, but it could be a change in fortune.
A warmer wind, a sign of Spring…oh, we hardly dare believe it.
But if it’s true…
I think our baby is bringing good luck into our lives.
My mother is appalled.
She cannot believe we are not going to the hospital and is unimpressed I will be at the birth.
“The pain is unimaginable. You need all the help you can get. This is very risky…
As for being there...at the birth...you do not have to be you know...
…it is very screamy and bloody and pooey...

... one is not at one's best."

Postscript: I am just about to post this entry when I look out of our bedroom window. There is a movement on the ice. An animal trots across the frozen lake directly opposite our cottage. I rush downstairs and grab the binoculars hanging by the deck window. Scanning the lake, I quickly spot the brown shape. I focus the binoculars... and she comes into view.

I am staring into the face of a she-wolf.
She looks directly at me.
A moment, silent communication.
And then she turns, and slowly pads away towards the forest.
A wolf is seen as a great teacher for adapting to one's environment and trusting one's intuition.
It's a good sign...
...and perhaps I should keep the kid company when she goes on one of her rambles.

Lupercalia, was a very ancient, possibly pre-Roman pastoral festival, observed on February 15 to avert evil spirits and purify the city, releasing health and fertility.

Many write that it was anciently celebrated by shepherds, and has also some connection with the Arcadian Lycaea. At this time many of the noble youths and of the magistrates run up and down through the city naked, for sport and laughter striking those they meet with shaggy thongs. And many women of rank also purposely get in their way, and like children at school present their hands to be struck, believing that the pregnant will thus be helped in delivery, and the barren to pregnancy. (Plutach)

The Lupercalia festival was partly in honor of Lupa, the she-wolf who suckled the infant orphans, Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome,^[5] explaining the name of the festival, Lupercalia, or "Wolf Festival."

It is a common opinion that the Christian church may have decided to celebrate Valentine's feast day in the middle of February in an effort to Christianize celebrations of the pagan Lupercalia.

Midwinter Meditation

2009-12-20T07:32:00.003-05:00

This year has brought about big changes.
A couple of years ago, Heidi and I were spending Christmas on New York’s Upper West Side, dragging our expensive tree through Central Park and into our rented studio apartment.
This year, we cut down our own tree from the surrounding bush. The cottage glows from the wood fire which battles against the -20 temperatures outside.
And a little girl starts her hour long morning ritual of talking and singing to herself.

To have one child… but two? Looks like carelessness.
Heidi’s belly grows more wondrous. The life inside moving gently; listening to us.
The baby is coming in my least favourite month of February.
We are having a home birth, but borrowing someone else’s home. The nearest hospital is too far away - especially in frigid February when there’s no guarantee we can drive out of our lakeside home.

Somehow we’ve survived in our remote cottage, but the new year could be interesting. To audition, I drive a 10 hour round trip to Toronto. I fly to New York and London. The airport is an hour away.
Future work is up in the air and, of course, financially, things are extremely tight, but something will turn up… it always has.

The country has a slower pace. Everything takes longer. A trip to town for groceries has to be planned and time set aside for the other chores that will doubtless occur.
But the country - rugged wild beauty - is restorative.
I love this time here.
Our new life with Maia is all the better for living close to the family she has known all her life.
Our new life in Heidi’s belly is all the better for living close to Heidi’s family …

And of course, with a little 18 month year old, time for one’s self is limited.

It’s an adjustment.

But I am getting there.

She’s strong.
She’s a whirlwind.
She’s horribly cute.

She smiles at me.
She jokes.
She kisses goodnight.

She calls me “Papa.”

The Thief

2009-10-08T15:17:00.008-04:00

Earlier this summer: I am filling in time by working in the strange Dickensian travel book store. The customers are always interesting characters, but I wouldn’t describe it as a job of any great excitement.
Then one day… one sleepy quiet day, when I am yawning and looking longingly through the small patch of window and out into the tiny glimpse of early summer sunlight…

The scruffy man who wanders in with the empty backpack on his shoulder looks suspicious. At first glance he appears early thirties, but the lines on his face may be premature - a twenty-something who’s lived a hard life perhaps.
A deference in his manner raises my alert antennae. He’s too polite, too quick to decline my offer of guidance around the jumble-tumble of books stacked to the ceiling.
And he has an empty backpack.
As he roams shiftily around the store - a nervous dark shadow - I point him out to Jeff. The sixty-something owner peers quickly down Eastern Europe, his small eyes alert.
Like a large tabby cat stalking his prey, Jeff tracks him around France, through Spain until, finally, in Italy I hear him cry out.
“Can I look in your bag, sir?”
The young dark Shadow man leaps backwards in alarm towards South America.
“Why?”
Jeff advances towards him, past Crete and the southern Mediterranean.
“I saw you put something in your bag.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I saw you put something in there,” Jeff repeats firmly, “and there was a Red Michelin France 2009 on this France shelf a moment ago and now it’s gone.”
I walk around the front of the counter and am now effectively blocking off his escape route via the United States.
“I didn’t take your books,” the Shadow replies, but his voice is unconvincing. In my head I am analyzing the timbre of the vocal quality, trying to work out the level of threat in front of me. Were we condition orange, green or red? I detect no danger of violence, not in the vocal vibrations he gives off, nor in his physical energy. However Jeff has now one hand on his bag and his voice is rising. The Shadow pulls away towards Buenos Aires.
“Let me look in your bag if you didn’t take anything.”
“Why? I didn’t take your books.”
Suddenly Jeff is grappling with him, trying to tear the bag off his shoulder.
“Let me look in your bag. You took something. They’re my books!” he shouts.
A startled customer who has been wandering through Western Canada appears. She calls out that she is phoning the police. Meanwhile Jeff has his victim in a bear-hug and appeals to me.
“Take his bag.”
I believe I’m not a coward, but I intuitively feel a physical approach is the wrong way.
I adopt for the Denzel Washington.
You know… Denzel in his negotiator mode - in control, laid-back, Mr Cool - as in so many of his films.
I lower the voice to baritone, cover it with a black velvet honey and look calmly into the Shadow’s eyes.
“Listen to me. You might as well as give us the bag. We’re not interested in anything but the books. Let us look in the bag and then, I promise you, we’ll let you go.”
“But I didn’t take anything…”
“I SAW YOU!” shouts Jeff, his arms still locked around his hapless prey. He turns to me again. “Richard, look in his bag.”
I take a deep breath, walk towards the Shadow, and hold out my hand.
We are now deep into the Amazon rain forest.
“Please… please, let me look. I promise you, we’re only interested in the books. If you haven’t got any, then we’ll be fine. Okay?”
The Shadow looks at me, struggles weakly once more, but Jeff is deceptively strong.
The customer calls out from China that she has the police on the line.
“ Do you want them to come?” she asks.
I look at the Shadow again and summon the power of Denzel.
“No, we don’t need the police here. Do we? It’s all going to be fine…isn’t it? We’re going to be fine.”
The Shadow stops struggling and shrugs.
I take his bulging backpack out of his right hand and march over to India… and to the only table in the store.
I open up the backpack; books tumble out.
“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. Look at this… oh my goodness.” Jeff looks stunned.
I count twenty-three books, all taken from the Shadow’s travels through Western Europe.
“Why… why steal from us? Do you know how difficult it is for us here?” Jeff says uncomprehendingly. “We’re only a small book store…we’re just keeping our heads above the water… oh my goodness, oh my goodness.”
The Shadow remains silent. He looks scared, helpless and defeated.
“Can we let him go?” I ask.
Jeff looks at me quizzically. Denzel returns his gaze. With a sigh, Jeff releases the Shadow from his iron grip.
“Go, and I never want to see you in my store ever again, do you understand?”
The Shadow nods.
I step aside, clearing the way for his escape and the Shadow Thief runs through Africa, flies past Israel… and out into the Toronto sunshine.

Autumn has arrived at the lake.
The trees are blazing orange and red. The first snow is forecast next week.
I have a chest infection - my first illness this year - and I lay in bed with three duvets on top of me and the outside bedroom door wide open. I can see the lake and the trees, and hear the water over the dam and listen to the wind in the branches.
Maia settles in with us each day and each day she changes imperceptibly.
Heidi and the baby in her belly continue to grow.
The logs have arrived and we are now stacking them - gradually.
There are a lot of logs.
The insulation in the basement is complete.
The water has been changed over to Uncle Don's supply.
We hope the pipes don't freeze.
We prepare, calmly but with purpose - as for war.
And the clouds gather.
And the wind blows.
A Northern winter approaches.

And Then, In Dreaming...

2009-09-16T14:22:00.004-04:00

Be not afeared: the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then in dreaming,
The clouds, methought, would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked

I cried to dream again .

When I first moved to Canada, I understood I was adopting a country.
I also realized Heidi’s amazing family had adopted me.
But even in my wildest and most surreal of dreams I never imagined we’d be adopting a child within my first Canadian year…
Or any year.
I have dreamed of moving to a cottage on a lake.
I have dreamed of playing a part on Canadian television.
I have dreamed of auditioning for Stratford Ontario.
I never thought these dreams would become a reality so quickly.
I always believed intentions and visualizations succeed - powerful tools for life, for working on a character.
Dreaming is what I do best.
Sometimes I wonder if I daydream too much… daydreaming about my daydreaming.
Long car journeys on the Aquila theatre tours across America were a joy; seven to ten hour travelling days along mainly straight highways - daydreaming paradise.
I read somewhere that Steven Spielberg gets his best ideas daydreaming behind the wheel.
Martin Luther King had ‘a dream’, and now we have our first black president.
I have come to believe that dreams have a powerful alchemy that work in wondrous ways.
And now…
I’m sitting here at a large oak dining table looking down a long verdant lawn, across a misty lake reflecting the vivid green of the expanse of trees on the opposite shore.
And I know I dreamt this.

Graduation Dream

Four years ago, Heidi decided she wanted to go to university and obtain a degree in English Literature. Since we were both living in New York and the university she chose was in Toronto, this was a major life change for us and to our relationship. I immediately knew that it was meant for her to do and that even if I felt an objection - which I didn’t - it would be a death knell for us as a couple.

Heidi was home schooled for the majority of her childhood. This was an emotional as well as a practical decision. She knew it wouldn’t be easy. Ten years older than the majority of students, she expected it to be hard on her intellectually as well as socially. However she felt she needed the time, not only for the kudos of obtaining the degree, but also to immerse herself in her chosen path as a writer. It was easy for me to support her. After all, I had done the same thing when I gave up a professional acting career and chose to go to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
Over four years Heidi threw herself into the world of literature and books. It was like watching a young child in a sand pit… eating ice-cream. She loved studying, but there were also times of despondency.
I never went to university, and as Hugh Crutwell, my principle at RADA, pointed out to me:
“You have no A levels and no O levels… in fact no levels at all.”
I effectively left school at 14. So I was astounded at the amount of work that was involved. Heidi appeared to be assailed by a constant stream of essays to finish, books to read, presentations and research.
This June, she finally graduated. On an emotional day, with her parents and sister Leah, we watched her, not only receive her Bachelors degree with honours, but also hear the news that she had come top out of all the graduates of 2009. I was an unrestrained proud husband. The four years of constant separation and long internet phone calls were very hard for us, but all of it was put into perspective - as we always hoped it would be - by this one glorious day.

Flashpoint Dream

Being in a television episode here is poles apart from acting in theatre.
For a start, auditions are usually a lot easier, a brief scene or scenes to memorize and to perform - more often than not - to the casting director.
Theatre usually casts months ahead: in television you may be on set in days.
With television, it all happens very quickly, earning you triple the amount of money, when suddenly you’re propelled into that most rarefied atmosphere -the guest artist on a network series.
In this case, the series was Flashpoint, the most successful Canadian TV series of the day and networked, not only here on CTV, Canada’s top television network, but also CBS in the United States.
It started out so unpromisingly when I first received the call from my Canadian agent.
I listened as he described the programme and the part I am up for at the audition.
A university professor - cue long standing insecurity about lack of formal schooling and Crutwell’s words ringing in my ears.
My agent hesitates.
“Um… It also says here he’s a well preserved 60-something.”
My excitement diminishes rapidly.
“Steve…?”
“I know, you’re too young, but it will be good for them to see you.”

There’s something about getting older. Things creep up on you.
One moment you’re playing the romantic lead: and then you’re the father to a 27 year old.
One month you’re playing Jack in The Importance of Being Earnest: the next month you’re George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
One year you’re the ever youthful Dicky Willis: the next year you’re Richard someone or other, the old actor laddie, going up for…(Oh God, my life is over!) … A 60-something university professor.
To my great surprise and mixed pleasure I got the part.
Hearing that a readthrough was going to be a part of the schedule left me anxious.
I have been to readthroughs and watched smiling actors, happy to have landed the job, acting their socks off, and the next moment… “they’re never heard of again.”
Insecurity nightmares are intensified when one has not even met the director.
Will he think I’m right for the part when he sees me in person? Will he take against me? It said 60-something on the breakdown; what if he thinks I look too young?
I once lost a part on the second day of filming. Cast as the white neighbor to an interracial husband and wife, I was quickly replaced. The producer thought I looked more Pakistani than the lead actor, Art Malik.
I arrived for the readthrough early - way too early. To use up some time, I walked to a Starbucks on a nearby corner and sipped coffee outside in the afternoon sunshine. A small attractive woman walked past and suddenly fell off her high heels.
‘Oh Fuck!” she said as she pulled herself up off the sidewalk.
I was about to rush to her aid when she locked eyes with mine.
The lead actress of Flashpoint stared back at me.
I froze, afraid that if I showed any expression, she would read it as mockery.
A puzzled expression passed across her face before she looked away and hobbled around the corner.

The readthough had now become a major obstacle. I could get fired from any direction - lead actress, producer or director. I took a deep breath in and forced myself into the reception of the television building.
I’m telling ya - being an actor with insecurities can be hell!
However, in the board room where the readthough was taking place, the Flashpoint cast turned out to be the nicest of people. Actors introduced themselves, the director and producers were warm and effusive in their gratitude that I had “accepted the part’. I was made to feel at ease straight away.
One person I hadn’t met sat quietly at the end of the long table rubbing her foot . I walked over to her and took a deep breath.
“Have you recovered?”
“You saw me… you saw me fall off those damned shoes. You’re the one!” exclaimed the lead actress.
I apologized that I hadn’t offered her any help.
“I thought you’d have me fired.” I said.
She, with the rest of the actors and production crew laughed delightedly.
Of course they didn’t know - I wasn’t joking.

The rest of the readthrough went wonderfully well. Flashpoint is a series set around a special armed response unit in the Toronto police force. Hugely popular in Canada, the programme has been sold all around the world. Judging by the cast’s reaction, this particular episode - One Wrong Move - was extremely powerful and well-written.
I adopted a transatlantic accent for my professor. I had no idea what they were looking for in the character, but it had been the first instinct when I read the part. I always try to follow my instinct.
Eventually we all sat around the large board table and the readthrough began. A production assistant read out the stage directions. When she described my character as a well-preserved 60 something, one of the lead actors chortled: “Very well-preserved.”
I could have kissed him.

When you’re a guest artist in a long running series, it pays to be on the ball. Everything is done at 90 miles an hour. The director expects you to come on the set with the lines learned and the character well-defined. You are given two takes to get it right, with possibly a third allowed for director acting adjustments. However if you start going to fourth takes and beyond, the set’s atmosphere becomes tense.
Coincidentally we shot the scenes on Heidi’s campus at York University, a bleak and barren concrete landscape. (Luckily Heidi’s main campus at Glendon College had an oldy worldy atmosphere, with charming mature buildings surrounded by nature.)
The series’ regular actors are in the groove. They learn lines quickly, know their characters inside out, and can switch on and off at a moment’s notice. The guest artist though has to be concentrated throughout the day. Happily, I was in the zone straight away as the ‘well-preserved’ professor. I fluffed no lines and revelled in taking direction. I watched my American and Canadian counterparts closely and with fascination. And, as usual, I loved working with a film crew.
Reacquainting myself with filming, I was surprised how much came back to me. As a young actor I worked exclusively on film and television. I loved working with the camera, the feeling that you’re one of the cogs in a machine, as you, your fellow actors, director and crew all battle to shoot the scene. I enjoy the feeling that I’ve hit the mark, that I’ve moved precisely at the right pace, that I’m aware of where the camera is and what it’s trying to accomplish. On the Flashpoint set I was totally at ease and relaxed with the process.
I adore ensemble work, being part of a company in the theatre.
Being part of a film crew gives me the same good vibrations. I’m happy in the feeling of belonging somewhere, of a momentary identity, of being part of a larger collective purpose.
Filming is and remains a fabulous experience.

Stratford Dream
My first visit to Toronto was in 1996. After an 11-week run in London’s West End at the Theatre Royal with The Master Builder, we had a seven-week stint at Toronto’s beautiful Royal Alexandra Theatre through January and February. The cast included Alan Bates, Gemma Jones and Victoria Hamilton.
I had been going to a wonderful therapist back in London (after yet another failed relationship). She was in her 70s, an ex-actress, and I got her cheap because she was completing her third year of training. When she heard I was going to Toronto she put me in touch with the artistic director of the Stratford Festival, Richard Monette.
I met Richard for tea after one matinee and spoke of my desire to work at the Festival. My father had tried to work there in the 50s and I had grown up hearing about the Stratford legends: John Neville, Christopher Plummer, Brian Bedford, Maggie Smith and Alan Bates. In the early 90s, the wonderful Canadian Shakespearean actor, Geraint Wyn Davies, stayed at my house in London and had regaled me with stories about the Stratford season.
Richard listened patiently to my rambling pitch and then said:
“Why should we employ an English actor?”
“New blood,” I replied. “An exchange of ideas and acting styles. A different color in the acting palette, a different sound in the orchestra…”
I continued floundering until he stopped me with a wave of his hand.
“My problem is this: if I employ you, then with the current exchange agreement with British Equity, a Canadian actor would have to work in the UK for the same amount of time that you would work here. We have a nine month season.”
My hopes dashed, I returned to England at the end of the run… and left my Stratford dream behind.
Five years later I travelled to the States and became a member of American Equity. I suddenly realized that I would be eligible to work in Canada without the burden of any exchange agreement.
Two weeks ago I finally got the call and auditioned. I have no idea if there’ll be anything for me in the season, or whether this was a general interview, but it’s pleasing to know that you have done all you can and performed at your best. The readiness is all.

…To Dream Again

But I wasn’t ready for what happened next. Not at all.
We had been approached in February about Maia, a 16 month old, and asked if we would become her parents. We had watched her grow over the months of her brief life. Maia, the daughter of Heidi’s brother Johnny and his ex-girlfriend, needed a home. For reasons too personal to reveal here, Maia had been put into the custody of Heidi’s mother and father. Now they asked us to take over the responsibility and adopt her.
We hesitated. We panicked. We didn’t know if we were ready. Financially, we weren’t in the greatest position. We had no home of our own, work was uncertain, we had no car. Was this a responsible move for our lives and our relationship - to adopt a little girl?
We had time however. Heidi was still at university and we knew that we couldn’t make any decision until the degree was completed. This gave everyone an opportunity to sit back and take stock. If things were still the same by the beginning of June, then Heidi would go up north to her parents’ house and spend two weeks with Maia. After the two weeks were up, we would know what to do.
We knew it was the right time to come to Canada.
We had faith in the timing of our wedding.
We have always known - in every decision we’ve made since we started listening to our instincts and following our hearts..
In the months that followed, things did indeed change. Sometimes it seemed that other developments might take her to someone else, but when June arrived, we were back to where we were in February: Maia’s grandparents were too tired to carry on. They also had to look after 16 year old Mark, Heidi’s youngest brother, who has cerebral palsy.
And so it happened.
But not how we expected.

The morning of Heidi’s travel day north, the journey to begin her time with Maia, the journey to decide whether we’d change our lives and our relationship irrevocably, we stared at a small grey plastic object that lay on our kitchen table. Eventually the faintest of red lines appeared… and we realized that by some miracle we had started another journey.
We had made a baby of our own.

Heidi journeyed north and began her time with Maia. On the second weekend I joined her.
We looked, waited and listened. In the end the final decision wasn’t difficult.

And then things moved quickly. Heidi’s family are in a unique position as they own five properties next to each other on a Northern Ontario Lake. The end cottage is owned by Uncle Don and Aunt Marja, with Ben (Heidi’s cousin) and his wife Stephanie’s cottage next door. The “Silver Bullet”, a trailer currently used to house guests, is the middle property. Next to that is Heidi’s Mum and Dad’s (Marilyn and Paul) cottage, and on the other side of them lives Heidi’s sister Marja, with her husband, Richard, and their two children, Fiona (7) and Wyatt (5).The rest of the family are close by. Sister Becky, her partner, Matt and their daughter, Maddi, are 20 minutes away by car. Brother Johnny lives an hour away. Youngest sister Leah lives in Toronto.

Ben and Stephanie only use their cottage as a summer weekend retreat. They offered to rent it to us.
We could live on the family commune. Would we consider moving?

So Maia came to live with us… And our lives changed overnight.

It wasn’t a hard decision to move north to the wilderness. I have always wanted a way of moving away from city life. Put me in the country, next to the sea or in a theatre and I am relaxed. I crave peace and quiet… and there is a wonderful silence here.

And now…
We live in a small cottage. Looking down from our deck, across a long, gently sloping lawn, we see the lake. We are at the furthest eastern shore. In the distance we can hear the gentle rush of the water going over the lake’s small dam. We have family all around us, a wonderful support system.
And I have fallen in love.
She is a strawberry blond little bundle of dynamite, a social butterfly who has already taught me to slow down and smell the flowers. Literally. She notices the smallest things, learns at an incredible speed and understands far more than she can communicate.
And she is the prettiest, most adorable and endearing of children.
She is also demanding, has a fearsome temper, and a mean streak. But since this reminds me of my younger self, I understand her. I have had to relearn patience and give up any self-centredness. She demands attention and a willingness to share. When practicing monologues for the Stratford audition, we would set out on long walks, Maia in her stroller and me reciting speeches at the top of my voice. She listened intently, always rewarding me with her special smile after each monologue finished..
She gets up at 7am, naps from 2pm til 4pm, and goes to sleep around 8pm, then sleeps through until 7am the next morning… without waking.
She wanders over to her cousins and plays. She waddles down to the lake and splashes in the shallows and digs in the sand.
She eats the sand.
She walks over to visit her grandma and Dougie the dog.
She eats Dougie’s dog food.
She roams free.
We have gone canoeing, fishing, camping, swimming, hiking and trampoline-ing together.
We live 11 kilometres from the nearest village and 60 kilometres from the nearest town. The last 8 kilometres to our home is down a gravel road, the last half a mile is a uneven rutted track.
We see two loons on the lake and hear their eerie wail in the early morning
We watch two herons flying past like low-flying World War II bombers.
We observe a beaver swim to its dam and otters playing in the shallows.
We fish and catch bass, pike, pickerel.
We hear there are bears and moose, but have yet to see one.
We are lucky that the mosquitoes and blackfly are practically non-existent at this time of year.
We have glimpses of mice and moles, chipmunks, rabbits and snakes.
Sister Marja woke up at 4am one morning to find a bat flying around her bedroom.

And all around there is the nature: the emerald of all kinds of trees, the forbidding northern rock, the ever-changing lake and the deep, deep silence of the wilderness.
Now Fall is here.
We are enjoying a last glimpse of summer. Chilly mornings turn into days of late summer sunshine. At night the stars wrap over our heads, a spangled blue canopy… so many stars. We walk to the sauna at the bottom of our garden and steam, then swim without feeling the cold.
But we can smell the autumn approaching.
The leaves are tired and some are turning a vibrant red.
The Canada geese are flying south.
“Don’t go,” we cry, “or if you have to go, avoid New York.”
Heidi handles Maia and pregnancy with a calmness and serenity that fills me with wonder. By the time our baby comes it will be dark winter; the snow piled high and the lake a frozen white sheet. The temperature could be as low as -30.

We have a child and are expecting another.
I have no acting work but yet we survive.
Theatre work was incredibly hard the last two years. Although I would prefer to be acting, I am grateful for the time to regroup and rediscover new parts of my self.
It’s a retreat. Some people may go to India, but I venture northern Ontario with its contrasting seasons serves just as well; a base camp for spiritual ascents.
Money still appears from unexpected sources and both our families have given us unstinting support.
I work here non-stop. Mowing, chopping wood, tarring walls, shovelling stone, looking after Mark, cleaning the house, washing the dishes…
And above all, we look after the fairy child, the incredible gift that is Maia.

From time to time I look into the dark rippling lake, and across to the tall green trees on the far shore, scan the biggest of skies…

and then in dreaming,
The clouds, methought, would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again

“Be not afeared,” I say to myself.
And - in this moment - I smile, supremely happy, and dream again.

God's Own Country

2009-04-14T09:56:00.017-04:00

I am living in “God’s Own Country.”
That is what my father says.
He has never forgotten his time in Canada.

And now I live here.
My Canadian wife, Heidi, is completing her degree, and we are finally spending time together in a home of our own. For once I am attempting to be a present and supporting husband in every way I can.
God’s Own Country?
I don’t know.
All I’m trying to do is to own the country I’m living in.

There are worse places to work than a travel bookstore.
I have discovered countries I didn’t even know existed.
I have explored facts about countries I would never have known.
For instance: according to Lonely Planet - and this astounds me -the entire population of Canada is less than that of Tokyo and its suburbs. Canadians however get 3,849,678 sq miles to sprawl out in against Tokyo’s 5,212 sq miles.
Because…
Canada is the second biggest country in the world after Russia.

I was looking for more space, but in this much space…
…no one can hear you scream.

My gran…grrrr.. - I just can’t say it - has been named.
Isabel Grace.
Her name was well received by everyone.
Except my mother.

“Isabel? Oh no, she’ll be called Izzy. Horrible. Izzy Willis? It’s all hissing - like an angry snake!”

Fortunately Isabel Grace’s last name is Rogers, anchoring the light and airy beginnings to the straight-forward and gravitational surname.

My struggle with being a gr*******er continues. When I confided this to my son on the phone, he was bemused.

“What’s wrong with being called ‘grandfather’?”

“I don’t like it.”

“But you are a grandfather.”

“It’s a label, a name given…”

“But it’s what you are.”

“I don’t like being put into any box that has the word ‘grand’ in it.”

“So what do you want to be called?”

“I don’t know… how about Tricks?”

“What? Tricks?”

“Short for Tricky Dicky.”

“You want your granddaughter to call you Tricks?”

“I’d rather not call her my granddaughter.”

“You’re joking.”

“How about Dee Dee? My daughter’s daughter?”

“Yeah, then how about me being called Sofud?”

“Sofud?”

“Yeah, Sofud. Son of fucked up Dad!”

I continue working in the dark Dickensian bookstore, occasionally leaving for an audition. Recently, I was sent in for a film - a Western.
I was impressed. It appears my Canadian agent has the ability to open doors
The part I was up for?
An upper-class English store-keeper.
I know.
I wouldn’t cast me as someone who works in a shop either.
Oh.. Wait…

The formidable casting lady - one of the top in the country, my agent had told me - looked me up and down when I had finished and then examined my CV. [Canadian/U.S: résumé]

“You know, people from the States sometimes think Canadian actors pad out their résumés, but they don’t,” she said emphatically. “There’s a lot of good work here for actors. They work a lot. It’s work I’ve heard New York actors say that they would kill for.”

I wasn’t sure if she was encouraging me or being defensive.

“Good,” I said lamely.

“Yes, there’s a lot of good work here. Can you do American accents?”

I offered up my seven parts in Catch-22 that I had lately performed in New York as a rash example of my linguistic virtuosity, then prayed she wouldn’t ask for a demonstration.

“Welcome to Canada,” she said and waved me away with a smile.

I left feeling encouraged.
Yes… it may take me a while to break in, but there is a lot of good work here.
I hope.

A day at the strange and wonderful travel bookstore is always interesting. All kinds of characters walk down the concrete stairs, open the bulky black Victorian door, and step into our subterranean book-lined world. Despite the gothic chaos all around - the books soaring from floor to ceiling, the absence of a computer checklist in the shop, the lack of space, the dust in the air, the constant book avalanches… despite all this, they are entranced.

A typical day:

The Tree Lady:
She enters and I recognize her immediately. I had served her… the previous month? Can’t remember… recently anyway. An English lady. Typical stock character, one of those older ladies out of a Terence Rattigan play. There are a lot of English [Canadian/U.S: Brits] people in Toronto. Too many.
(“Oh, I wouldn’t like that,” an English friend, now living in the States, told me recently. I know what he means… And the English people here all appear to have been caught in a 1950s time warp.)

“Hello,” I say, “I thought you were in Sri Lanka.”

“Oh yes, I’ve been there, and now I’m off again… to New Zealand.”

She throws her head back and laughs, showing her yellowing horsy smile. Her skin crinkles, the laughter lines around her mouth joining up to the wrinkles under her eyes. She looks like a weathered old tree. I imagine her arms as branches, her hands as twigs. But she’s strong and she’s bending with the wind.
I weigh up her age. Mid-seventies? Could be older though…

“Well why hang around here, eh? February in Toronto…”

“Exactly,” she says firmly.

“Good for you,” I say and together we proceed to go through the various travel guides for New Zealand.

“And how’s your daughter?” I ask.
I remember she had flown to Sri Lanka to see her. Her daughter had been ... or was… (I struggle to remember) a headmistress? She had told me.
I do remember she was in her forties and (I had detected a sadness in her face) was unmarried.

“Oh fine, fine…yes, she’s doing well. She loves it out there so much.”

We are at the counter now and I am writing up her purchases: Two guides and an International Travel Map of New Zealand.

“You know, I was worried about you,” I say smiling at her, “you were going into a war zone out there.”

“Oh it wasn’t so bad,” she answers smoothly. “Although…” she laughs again, the same head throwback, with a small tilt to the left this time. The yellow teeth flash. “Although, we did get bombed. You have to admire the Tamils really. They’re being hammered in the North, but they still managed to bomb Colombo.”

I place the items in a bag and hold them out to her as she puts her card into a small beaded wallet.

“And your daughter? Will she ever come back here?”

“Oh no, she’s been there for 19 years. She has a job that she loves…”

She trails off and for a moment I see her eyes glisten. She stoops to pick up her handbag [Canadian/U.S: purse] and drops her wallet into its mysterious depths. When she lifts her head, she looks at me, sighs, and then laughs again.

“No, no, she won’t be back here. I will have to go there…well, as long as I can.”

“That’s hard for you I imagine,” I say cautiously.

“Well, she loves it there so much.”

And she smiles sadly and heads for the door.

The Arguing Couple:
They are travelling to St Petersburg and Moscow. Then it’s on to India and Mumbai before journeying overland to Beijing.

“We’re with a group,” he says. “It has a guide, but we’d like to see where we’re going, you know?”

I say I do, and pick out guides and maps for their journey and leave them for their examination on the one surface in the store that is flat and has good light - a large round table covered in oversize books.
Within a couple of minutes they are arguing.
It’s not a loud argument, but a niggling skirmish.
The woman insists on examining every map.
The man is impatient.
The choices to him are obvious.
Not to her, but she decides…
…and then changes her mind.
As she holds up the maps for comparison, I see the man can barely contain his anger and frustration.
One hour later, and they are in the same spot.
Unfolded maps and open guidebooks surround them. They’re still skirmishing.
She must know how this angers him. He probably doesn’t know that she enjoys this subtle goading.

I wonder how they will survive the epic continental journey.
Murder on the Orient Express?

The Old Odd Couple:
I can’t place the accent but it’s heavy and stilted.
Not broken English, but shattered.
He is talking about … what? Maps?…ah, now I understand.
The large old man at the counter wants a wall map, and now he holds out his massive hand and introduces himself. His not-so-large wife stands behind him. She is squat and impassive.
Like an old toad, I think, and immediately admonish myself for the ageism, or sexism, or racism… or whatever ‘ism’ it is when you compare an old woman to a slimy green amphibian.
He smiles and I shake his hand and indicate to the wall maps in the container in front of me.

“Bud e muss hef Greenlund,” he cries.

“Greenland?”

I look over to the toad-wife and she nods.
We find a map of North America with Greenland on it and he opens it up. Scanning it eagerly, he points to towns, muttering words in a language I don’t recognize.
Eventually he puts aside the map and disappears to discover more of the store. The toad-wife follows in his huge shadow.
Later he returns, holding a large book in his hand.

“Leuk, see har…yer see, do yer see?”

The book contains images of old sailing ships. He has opened at a page featuring a photograph of a large old ship moored in a small harbour. Its sails are furled and the wooden buildings behind, tired and grey, have smoke curling upwards from the chimneys in their snow-covered roofs.

“Me, wak ther… see?” He leans over the book and then points to himself animatedly.

“You? On that ship?”

“Yes!” he cries“ I… I am …a …”

He hurriedly consults toad-wife again, who flicks a toad tongue around her tense mouth, grimaces and answers.

“Fisherman… he was a fisherman.”

“Yes,” said the old man excitedly, “ and I… umm… wak…. on that ship… that is the ship I wak on… for many years I am a feesher mun.”

My curiosity aroused I venture to ask him what country he is from.

‘I coam from Por too gerl. Yes?”

“You are Portuguese?

“Yes, I feesh in Greenland… a long time ago. And now…” He pulls himself to his full height and says triumphantly: “…I wan a mep.””

After some deliberation, he buys the book and the largest wall map we have of North America.
Including Greenland.
He shakes my hand once more and starts for the door.
His wife nods at me and waddles after him.
At that moment I notice the object she clutches in one of her hands.
It is pink, shiny and has the words ‘Cupid Boutique’ written loudly across its side.
I stifle a laugh… as the titanic Portuguese Fisherman and his diminutive toad-wife - swinging her sex-shop bag - leave the store.

The Botanist:
He’s going to Kanchenjunga, the world’s third highest mountain in the Eastern Himalayas. He tells me he’s following in the footsteps of the famous botanist Sir Joseph Hooker.

“Who?” I ask him. I know nothing about botany or botanists after Darwin.

The man before me is aged around… twenty-eight… no, thirty. He’s fit, stocky and has sandy hair which he constantly flicks out of his eyes. And he is yet another Brit.

He patiently explains that Sir Joseph Hooker - a friend of Charles Darwin, and one of the first great plant hunters - illegally entered Tibet and Nepal. His subsequent imprisonment created a political dispute between Sikkim and the British East India Company, resulting in the annexing of fertile tea-growing land by the Company. He explored the region around Kanchenjunga in 1848-50, collecting some 7000 species of plants.

He asks me about my background and I tell him I have come to Canada from the States.

“It’s the other way around for me,” he says, “I’m trying to get into the States. What are you doing here?”

“I married a Canadian,” I return.

“Oh, right,” he smiles, “I’ve just broken up with a Canadian.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah… well…” he shrugs and then grimaces.

“Is that why you’re going on this trip?” I ask, then fear I have been too personal.

He sighs, once more flicking his hair with his hand.

“I guess so. Bollocks… I hadn’t though of it like that.”

Mr. Angry:
He explodes into the store, slamming the door behind him, brushing past the disabled customer near the Africa section.

“This place is hard to find,” he says heatedly.

I start to give my ready-made answer: A lot of people have trouble finding us - we like to remain mysterious - we don’t advertise…

“Yeah, you guys should have a fucking sign.”

Is he drunk, or disturbed? I search his face closely. People don’t usually come into the store and start swearing on a Monday morning He’s well-dressed, wearing what my dad used to call a lounge suit. I guess he’s mid-fifties, and he’s on his ‘winter weight,’’ his belly protruding over the top of the belt of his lounge suit trousers. [Canadian/U.S: pants] A typical downtown businessman.
I explain: we’re not allowed to have a sign; we’re in a historic building, you see.

“That is why we only have that all-weather cloth sign tied to the railings outside. You didn’t see that?” I hope my tone sounds conciliatory.

“No I fucking didn’t. They sent me up and down this street and then on to another street around the corner. I’ve been looking for this place for fucking ages.

“Oh dear,” I say, “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah well…fucking ridiculous that you haven’t got a fucking sign. Okay, now I’m here, do you have maps?”

The disabled customer turns his body around with the help of his crutch. “Oh yes, they have an incredible selection… this is a wonderful store. You won’t be disappointed -”

“Where are they then? I need Egypt.” The angry customer ignores him. His question is addressed to me over his shoulder as he barges further inside our shadowy and bewildering interior. New Zealand and Antarctica suffer collateral damage in his wake.

I point him towards the overcrowded map section. Usually I would insist on helping him, but I sense - and I think rightly - this man is having a bad day.

“Okay, I have a good mind not to buy one now.”

He stomps over to the maps and begins rifling though the maps for Middle East.
Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Iran suffer border violations.

“Oh you won’t regret coming here,” the disabled man cries after him. “This is a wonderful…, my favourite bookshop. If you search you can find all sorts of treasures.”
The lamed man practises what he preaches. He has been in the store for four hours straight and has set aside eight books so far.

But the angry customer cannot be placated.

“No…you know what? I’m really angry…really fucking angry. You should have a fucking sign. I’m not going to buy a map here, I’m going to buy it at fucking Chapters or Indigo.” [Canadian/U.S: Up-market bookshops. I’ve been away from the UK too long to know, but one that’s more extensive than W.H. Smith.]

And he turns on his heel, sweeps though the big black Victorian door and slams it behind him. Parts of Kenya and Namibia are toppled.
“I think he’s having a bad day,” the disabled man says consolingly. “You know, you have a wonderful store.”

“Hmmm… Monday morning and a bad weekend, may be…” I answer politely and come from behind the counter and start rescuing parts of West Africa.

It’s okay.
I don’t feel bad.
I’m a man of the theatre and I have seen drama queens and volcanic star tantrums all my life.

And besides…

He won’t find any fucking Egyptian maps at fucking Indigo or Chapters

I feel Spring air here… at last.
As I write this I am up North - out of the city - enjoying a boisterous Easter family weekend surrounded by a dazzling landscape.
I am watching Canada geese glide on the shimmering lake, freshly thawed out from its Winter ice.
I am breathing the sharp cold Northern air and soaking up soothing Spring sunshine.
The snow remains but is melting fast.
Large patches of sodden green are reappearing.
Small green buds blossom on some of the trees.
The land is slowly awaking from its deep sleep.

I have survived my first Canadian winter.
I work in a strange and wonderful travel bookstore for not much money.
It’s not enough, but we can muddle through.
At least until summer.

Another interesting fact from Lonely Planet:
Canada is the second coldest country in the world with an average temperature of -5 c.
I hate the cold.
As a young man, my father lived in Canada and fell in love.
He calls it “God’s Own Country.”
Well… I don’t know.
I try to feel what he felt, but this is tempered by two things I know:

My father’s memory is not what it was…

But also…

My father has never believed in God.

February and a Friend's Farewell

2009-02-21T21:22:00.024-05:00

"...the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
— T.S. Eliot

She died on Friday the thirteenth.
My friend. My fabulous friend.

I play a voicemail she left on my phone just ten days earlier and all that life and magic I saw in her I hear in the soft warm voice. I had phoned her back immediately and we had spoken for… what? Twenty minutes?

She told me she'd had a lung punctured in the hospital, but she was back home. She didn't know how long she'd be around. I said I was planning to come over in March. Maybe sooner. I suppose I hoped that might be an encouragement. She knew I was telling her to hang on. I remember she cut me off quickly.

She was tiring fast.
And now she is gone.
In February.
Friday the thirteenth.

I hate February.

Toronto is a tale of two cities.
The city above ground has tasteful skyscrapers and unique buildings such as the Air Canada Centre, the Art Gallery of Ontario, First Canadian Place and the Sky Dome. The CN Tower rises impressively above them all, the highest freestanding structure in North America…

And then there is the city below which Heidi and I fondly call 'the corporate underworld'. The Toronto PATH system is a network of underground walkways and shopping malls that stretch 27 kilometers beneath Toronto's genteel downtown. I have no idea if people venture down there in the summer. In the winter though, when the wind roars across Lake Ontario and sweeps down and around the glass towers of Downtown Toronto, the PATH system means you don't have to venture out into the -20 temperatures that attack this city. You can take off your coat and all the other damned layers. You can keep warm, dry and loose to your destination - a godsend in this winter-blasted city.

The only drawback? You could spend hours down there looking for a way out. Getting lost in the subterranean labyrinth is incredibly easy. The network meanders from point A to D and back to B with no logical sense of direction.

As I wander the shiny walkways, I pass rows of shiny shops, stable Canadian banks and multicultural restaurants. Sometimes I emerge into a larger area with higher ceilings and bright white lights that mimic daylight. Manufactured waterfalls tumble down chiseled steps into coin littered pools.

I imagine that this what a future moon base will be.
Sometimes I feel like I am on the moon.
The cold here is relentless… and February is my least favorite month.
I am not sure if I suffer from the SAD condition, but I know that this month is always a struggle both mentally and physically. My skin turns yellow from lack of sun. I realized long ago that, whatever the risks, my skin needs the sun.
In February I go dark.
In February I age five years.
In February I shiver and shrivel.
And I am not alone.

In the bookstore where I work, people are coming in a steady stream, buying guidebooks and maps for sunnier and more exotic destinations. February and March is when Canadians - it seems - take their overseas holidays.

Ah yes, the bookstore.

When I arrived in Toronto the first priority was to find some means of paying the rent whilst Heidi finished her university degree. So when I heard that the owner of the eccentric bookstore where she worked part-time had broken his leg playing his weekly game of ice-hockey, it seemed natural to offer to help out. To be honest, it was fascinating to be away from the theatrical world and among the 'ordinary' people.

Of course I discovered this particular cross-section of ordinary people were more crazy, more dramatic and far more interesting than a lot of theatre folk. And all of their enthusiasms are fuelled and fulfilled by the little shop on Toronto Street.

For thirty years this unique specialty store has catered to a wide variety of enthusiasts: from travelers, mountaineers and cyclists to naturalists, bird lovers, and ecology buffs. It carries a vast assortment of travel guidebooks, nature books, bird books, books on mammals, books on geology, ecology, astronomy and… a whole world of maps. Situated in the middle of downtown Toronto in the basement of an historic building, it occupies a prime location. Further down the street is the old 1853 post office building which became the headquarters of the disgraced newspaper magnate Conrad Black. This area of downtown is the financial hub of Canada where the suits and ties wander a little less sure of themselves in these uncertain economic times.

Because the rent is cheap and he captures the downtown market, the owner, Jeff, is reluctant to move. He has been here for thirty years, after all, and whilst the store has remained a permanent reassuring haven to those seeking the specialized subjects it sells, the stock has outgrown its home. Jeff hates to throw anything away. So when you open the heavy black Victorian front door and walk inside, you are in a gothic Harry Potter world where hundreds of books are placed two deep in the shelves; others are piled on the floor and rise to the ceiling. Backpacks have to be removed, not because Jeff is wary of shoplifters, but because he's afraid of a book avalanche and customer injury!

There appears to be no logical layout.

The maps are arranged in a huge shelving unit in loose geographical order. South America travel guides are next to Italy and Greece, which spill across to Spain in the opposite stack. Wall maps of the world are in different sections and not in one place. Globes of various styles are kept in boxes, not only in the back of the shop but also in the only window, thereby blocking out all daylight save for a small triangular area where I see the top two stone steps and the black iron railing of the stairway that leads down to the formidable shop entrance.

Sometimes it feels like I am working inside a stylized hologram of Jeff's brain. I sidle through precarious Africa, tiptoe around dangerous Asia and walk gingerly towards unstable South America. No sunlight is seen down here except though that small pane of glass. Mid afternoon approaches and I begin to flag, and stare longingly at that tiny patch of daylight.
I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.

And, miraculously, Jeff knows where everything is.
Jeff on the outside appears as dusty and disheveled as his bookshop. His hair is unkempt, a yellowing grey. His body is large and lumbering. His face, pudgy and almost feline, resembles a wary tom-cat who is determined to keep his favorite spot by the fire. Stumbling awkwardly on his crutches, he shambles about the narrow book-lined passages on his one good leg and eventually maneuvers his way to the back office. The only way inside this inner sanctum is sideways, as every single bit of space is littered with books and paper.

To the customers he is curt and monosyllabic with any pleasantries or praise of the store, which happens more often than you might think. People adore its unkempt eccentricity and are grateful that it will invariably have their longed-for travel book, map, chart, geological study, ecological tome or bird field guide. When maps, countries or books are discussed, however, Jeff’s passion takes over and he becomes eloquent and enthused. His knowledge of the world of travel and its countries is truly phenomenal.

Mine unfortunately isn't.
This has been a hindrance.
So has the other aspect of my new position.

I haven't had many jobs outside of acting and this is the first one for thirteen years. In all of those other diversions I have never had to deal with a credit card or cash. I never wanted to either because I was always hopeless at Math, so much so that at my boarding school I was demoted one term to the year below for the Mathematics class. My brain is just not made that way. I suffer from dyscalculia - the mathematical dyslexia.

And yet I have persevered. I drew up a detailed map of the whole store - even a map of the map unit. I have concentrated hard with the cash register and despite my night terrors I have forced myself to learn the cashing-up process at the end of the day and fill in the books.
The books? Yes. No computer system for Jeff. Everything is filled in by hand and written down in a ledger.
I am Bob Cratchett as I scratch the figures into the neat numbered columns.
And I am surprised.
I am enjoying myself.
I enjoy meeting these new eccentric characters. I even gain a satisfaction from seeing the figures add up at the end of the day. I love the books on every corner of the earth and enjoy the pleasure this strange unique store gives to its delighted customers.
Inside its cramped mazy musty walls, where books leap from their dusty shelves and packing boxes and antique globes touch the ceiling, the strange little bookshop hoards this whole beautiful world of ours.

Outside of the bookshop world I have also been auditioning, taking my first tentative steps into the Canadian Acting world. One was for a commercial for a popular washing powder where I was auditioning for a cockney coal miner. No, I didn't know there were any cockney coal miners either - although may be there were a few in Kent. Are there any working coal mines left in the United Kingdom anyway?
My Canadian agent, Steve, encouraged me to go dressed for the part.
"You should make yourself scruffy. Don't shave and put dirt on your face."

I thought he was joking. However when I walked into a room full of dirty-faced Canadian cockney coal-miners I realized I was mistaken. I managed to be called back a couple of days later despite my clean shaven and shiny appearance. But ultimately I failed on the line delivery which, despite my three years of RADA training, I couldn't help uttering with an amused sparkle in my eyes.

You try saying "Oi! Your knickers are showing," in butch cockney coal miner guise without a hint of a smile.

But then…
The smile was short-lived.
This is February.
Contra vim mortis non crescit herba in hortis.

I first met Dilys Laye on a bright Leicester spring day in 2000.
It was the first day of rehearsals for Alan Bennett's Single Spies, which contains two one act plays. The first, An Englishman Abroad, is more a less a two-hander. I had been cast by director Paul Kerryson to play the homosexual double agent Guy Bennett; Dilys was the legendary sharp tongued Coral Brown. It was hard rehearsal period. I was commuting from Newcastle-under-Lyme, where I was playing George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in the evenings. Rehearsals for An Englishman Abroad were from eleven thirty until three thirty. I would set out in my car at nine, arrive at eleven, and then drive the two hours back again to catch a nap in the theatre for the arduous three and three quarter hours of domestic hell that makes up that particular night of Albie's play.

In the beginning I remember Dilys watching me for long periods.
She had beautiful expressive eyes.
I remember not being sure how we were going to get on.
But then I said something that made her laugh. She had a wonderful infectious throaty laugh. After that things were just fine and a close bond was forged.

Playing opposite her was a joy and an education. Dilys had a unique theatrical presence, a mercurial energy that surrounded her sharp mind and was wrapped up in masterly comic timing. She had been a Carry-On film regular, a musical theatre star and a respected company member of the RSC. We had two things in common: we were both stage school kids and theatre was our first love. After the play ended we continued our friendship. This time it was the play in reverse. Dilys would make a little tea/supper and I would supply the wine. She was a marvelous friend.

When I moved to America she stayed in touch, helping me through some rough personal patches. Always supportive both personally and professionally, I'm not sure she agreed with my time away from England, but she understood my hunger for Shakespeare roles and the theatre.

Her last theatrical role was in Nicholas Nickleby at Chichester. I happened to be on a visit at the time and she asked me to come to her first night and escort her to the after-show party.

"I can't wait until I tell the other girls, Dearest. It will give them something to gossip about!" and she chuckled mischievously.
Indeed it was a love affair of a kind. She knew I saw her not as an 'old bag' in her seventies, but as a vital, talented, caring and sexy woman.
We had fun flirting with one another.
It made us laugh.
Then the illness hit and she fought it quietly, bravely. She gave up her beloved theatre but still continued acting on TV and film.

I last saw her in May.
An afternoon tea just like the play.
She was frail, her hair was short and she was a lot thinner.
"Are you shocked, darling?" she said, ushering me inside her little cottage.
"No, I like the gamine look," I lied… and she smiled.
We had - what turned out to be - our final tea together, and spent it catching up with personal news, theatre chat and gossip. We both knew it was unlikely we would see each other again as my schedule was full for the next six months. She had been given two months to live. She lived another seven months, determined to attend and speak at her son's wedding… and she did last October.

I'm not good with goodbyes. We say them all the time as actors. Jobs come and go, and people we are so involved with, disappear and move on. Usually I mutter a brief farewell some time before the final day, and then slip away quietly. I suppose it eases my melancholy, my sadness. Or is it - as Bennett's Guy Burgess says - that 'one is such a coward'?

It was a beautiful English Spring afternoon when Dilys and I said goodbye that final tea-time. Small clouds floated across the bluest sky - the smell of burgeoning honeysuckle and purple rhododendrons, the cooing of a wood-dove and the serene stillness of a perfect day.
We stood at her door for ages.
I could not speak words because words were inadequate.
A melody I couldn't play, a song I couldn't sing.
So we looked at each other and let thoughts drift between us.
Finally we hugged each other close… and hugged…

… and did not break away for a long time.

The Empirical Method Actor

2009-01-31T21:44:00.012-05:00

"Intuition is a combination of historical (empirical) data, deep and heightened observation and an ability to cut through the thickness of surface reality. Intuition is like a slow motion machine that captures data instantaneously and hits you like a ton of bricks. Intuition is a knowing, a sensing that is beyond the conscious understanding — a gut feeling. Intuition is not pseudo-science." Abella Arthur

And so…
I awake and look out on to an unfamiliar sky.
I see a white cold world and sense a slower gentler pace of life than the energy and electricity of New York City.
Toronto seems strangely quiet after London and Manhattan.
But that's unfair. Paris, London Barcelona, Rome, Chicago, New York…
Toronto may not have their bustle and hustle, but it has a vibrancy and artistic energy. The people are kind, tolerant and considerate and they live in the biggest city in Canada. This is where the action is.
I hope.
Deep breath in.
Tell me again, why am I here?

Well…
… it was time to make a home somewhere.
Enough of sublets and tours and hotel rooms. Enough of other people's things and spaces.
Enough
Time to settle down and gather our few possessions together in one place and start building our life.
Time to bring our books out of their storage boxes, to have our own bed with our own bedding on it, our own plates, cups and glasses. Homeless for over eight years, I was ready to stand still and slip off my traveling backpack.
Time for a home.
Our home.
Together.

It was a leap o' faith for sure. It didn't make much practical sense.
Every day we were bombarded by the media gleefully pronouncing the end of the world, salivating over the latest job losses or economic figures.
Surely better then, to stay in the States where the work had been plentiful; to venture out on the tour yet again and save precious money whilst Heidi finished her schooling. That would have been the sensible option.

A year ago we made our choice.
I had just met with Steve Young, my - now - Canadian agent for the first time. I returned to Heidi and said that it wasn't going to be the UK or the States. I was certain. We would make our first home in Canada. I couldn't offer any rational explanation, just an overwhelming feeling of knowing. I had had the same feeling eight years ago and had acted on it. When I first came to New York, I knew that the States was where I was meant to be.
My life took dramatic and complicated turns over the following year and I struggled to fathom why I had made that decision, but the gut feeling remained strong.
When I was given the choice to return to the UK, I decided to stay in the States.
A few weeks later I met Heidi.

After making that decision to move to Canada a year ago, I embarked on one of my hardest stretches of continuous acting work in the States. It was an intense year.
Malvolio, Brutus, the Dromio twins, seven characters in Catch-22 and the Iliad; a national tour around the States, workshops for the Idaho Native Americans, trips to Greece, Canada, UK and Germany; and a landmark birthday.

As the year progressed and the Canadian permanent residency bureaucracy cranked slowly into action, other possibilities came into view. If they had happened it might have led me to delay, but time after time it was obvious that Canada was bringing me to her.
Finally, the coincidences were overwhelming. I had long ago decided to follow my hunches.
There was no question that now was the time to venture North.

And then miraculously things started falling into place.
We were presented a home - cheap and perfect.
We were given work - important when you land in a new country with no access to the protective shield of unemployment money.
Probably the biggest gift that the fates gave us was time spent together.
Heidi's university was hit by the longest university strike in Canadian history which enabled her to spend two months with me in New York and an acclimatizing month in Toronto. The strike is now resolved and Heidi goes back to work on Monday.
All we have to do now is keep faith with that intuitive hunch.
In the meantime we have to try and make things work until she graduates at the end of May. Who knows how that will happen? I have job here now, and I can still fling on the backpack and work in the States and Europe without any bureaucratic nonsense, if the opportunity arises.
That's fortunate indeed.

I am always saying to acting students 'follow your instincts' .
Follow your instincts. That's where true wisdom manifests itself, Oprah says.

And so…
I awake and look out to an unfamiliar sky.
I see a white cold world and sense a slower gentler pace of life than the energy and electricity of New York City.
Toronto seems strangely quiet after London and New York.
Deep breath in…
… and put into practice what I have preached.

The End is the Beginning

2008-12-14T09:01:00.012-05:00

“Heroes know that things must happen when it is time for them to happen. A quest may not simply be abandoned; unicorns may go unrescued for a long time, but not forever; a happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story.” Peter S. Beagle

It's all coming to an end.
But what kind of end?
It just depends on what film I'm in.
The year is heading to its climax.
Two national tours, trips to the UK, Germany and Greece, 12 different characters, my first vote in a presidential election, a landmark birthday and my first wedding anniversary. I arrived here in 2001 and 9/11 and now we are about to have our first African American president and a man who has single-handedly brought back the skills of rhetoric. Shakespeare would be proud.

There is also another chapter to close...

Meanwhile we head into our last week on Catch-22. My dream of working with an-all American New York company on an American play turned out to be everything I had dreamed.
The actors were generous, great fun and highly talented. When my American accents were bouncing around the five boroughs or even drifting around a few states, they kept silent and continued to be supportive of the Brit 'veteran' (sic) in their midst.

I began Catch-22 a year and a half ago, toured it around the country and through four different incarnations. It is perfect to finish it in the Lucille Lortelle Theatre, the beautiful West Village off-Broadway theatre in one of the most romantic areas of New York.
Ah, New York New York... a city I fell in love with the moment I arrived.
One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years. Thomas Wolfe

But soon...
I'll be heading North for Christmas - to a family that I love, to the ice and snow, to the frozen huge rocks and wide icy lakes, to a wild untamed nature...
and to a renewal in a cold, bright, white white world.

The phone call

2008-11-20T02:19:00.004-05:00

"Hello"
"Disappointing news I'm afraid."
A phone call from my agent Honey. The call I had been waiting for. It had been two weeks.
"Well..."
I breathe in, but I know and close my eyes...
"It isn't going to work out."
The Lion King, Scar and Vegas dreams disappear out into a frosty New York December night...
... and for a moment my world turns cold.

"The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.” Robert Kiyosaki.

"It is generally known that he who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation, or has any other effect than that of producing a moral sentence or peevish exclamation" Samuel Johnson

"C'est la guerre" Catch-22

...you'd be more out in the cold stuck in the desert for a whole year. Robin Willis

Run Yossarian...

2008-11-19T09:55:00.012-05:00

Danby: Weather conditions have improved tremendously over the mainland, so you won't have any trouble at all seeing the target. Of course, we mustn't forget, that means that they won't have any trouble at all seeing you. (Catch-22)

For this time, this brief moment I’m living a perfect life. A romantic life. A fulfilled life. A life I have always dreamed of living. It may last a day, a week, it may last until Christmas, but it is more perfect by me recognizing that I have - at this moment - a kind of perfection.

I’m back in the most exciting city in the world: New York; back in my bright and airy fifth floor walk-up apartment, our castle in the sky.
My wife has unexpectedly joined me from Toronto because her university has been hit by a strike.
This week we open in Catch-22 at the Lucille Lortelle Theatre in the heart of Manhattan’s West Village.
Now there’s romantic for you.

I have worked on Catch-22 for a year and a half. A new adaptation of an old adaptation, it has gone through many changes, toured many states, but finally it has landed in its home city.
Joseph Heller was a Brooklyn born writer and there’s definitely a sense of a homecoming as we prepare for opening night.

Catch-22 is of course un-stage able.

Everyone has told us so.

However the reaction on the road and early signs in previews point to a warm welcome back to a much-loved writer and the crazy surreal world that make up Catch-22. We have group of top-notch actors. As an English actor it's a real thrill to be working on a major American classic with wonderful American actors.

Of course Aquila is not your typical theatre company and artistic processes and nerves are being tested as we approach the final run-in to the always stressful time of a New York opening.

But for some reason I feel… I have always felt … let me whisper this…
Run Yossarian, Run!

Going with the Flow

2008-10-17T14:01:00.010-04:00

After some rather bleak locations on the tour, we have arrived at an artistic oasis.
I'm in Northfield, Minnesota, sitting in a hip 50s-styled coffee house, sipping at my chai latte and watching the interesting mixture of young students and older faculty from the local liberal arts college.
This afternoon, I give an hour and half Shakespeare workshop. This is followed by a 15 minute talk at a symposium on The Iliad. Ten years ago, if you had told me that those two events would be a part of my day, I would laughed in your face. Now I take them in my stride, confident that what I need to say will come to me in the moment. Tonight is The Iliad and my last performance of this tour.

And so… on Sunday I leave the tour and the Dromios. My body has held together remarkably well. The back fully recovered. I have a numbness in the base of my thumb on my right hand. I think I have a slight tear in my meniscus joint in the knee, but I have ran and danced through the slight uncomfortable pain. I will now rest it all up for a week before going to the gym to start a muscle strengthening regime on the knee. Mid-November is the next free time I will have to go and get a check-up. I know this is my last extreme physical performance. At some point I have to accept that if I don’t want to be hobbling around in old age, I have to be a little gentler with my remarkably willing body.

I am sad to leave the tour. This company has just recently gelled. Each touring company has its own energy. I am particularly fond of this group. They are such interesting and diverse people. They have come together extremely well, each character complimenting each other, and now are in ideal tour mode. Ideal tour mode? Pride and continued exploration of the plays, enthusiasm in the workshops and a care and respect for each other and their personal space. I shall miss them.
I feel guilty and strangely ambivalent about leaving them mid-tour, but I know that Jay Painter, my replacement, is more than ideal. He will be fantastic as the Dromios and strong and commanding in The Iliad. Having suggested him from the beginning takes away some of the guilt, but still...

Funny story: Towards the end of The Iliad I have a scene with Natasha Piletich .
Natasha is a wonderful actress - strong, sexy, with a voice that vibrates like a smoking cello. She is a considerate company member. She always thinks it best to announce to us all when she's on her period.
She has a line:
" ...send to Agamemnon, a wooly menace, a dream."
She stumbled on the word Agamemnon and said:
"...send to ..er.. um...ZEUS!"
I opened my eyes wide. I was playing Zeus and I knew she didn't want to send any dream to me.
Her arms flailed in circles as she realized her mistake, but now panic had set in...
" a...er...a ... fighting.... MENSTRAL."
There followed a brief transition. I walked upstage and sat on Zeus’s throne. I then was to give instructions to the Dream to go to the tent of Agamemnon. I thought I was going to be okay until I heard the rest of the cast. They were playing the other Gods asleep. One by one they were becoming more human and giggling.
Zeus's instructions took twice as long as I struggled to keep the laughter out of my voice and hoped the gasps for air and control sounded like portentous heavy emotion.
I pitied James Knight who stood high on our Iliad black boxes for the last speech of the play as Achilles. The rest of the cast were symbolically standing at his feet, touching him as if paying homage. Slowly, we all started to silently shake. Achilles and his wrath made it through to:
“I won't lift a finger in this bloody war”
Then the lights went down and seven actors made a curtain call convulsed with laughter.

On Sunday I return to New York and begin rehearsals for Catch-22 for it's New York run. Other possibilities are flying around in the air at the moment. I’m always excited when that starts happening. That’s a part of the life of an actor I love. You just never know where your next job may take you. Or which country. I'm just going with the ...er... flow.

A Seventh Heaven

2008-10-01T19:10:00.008-04:00

I have been tagged by the beautiful Emergence. The deal? To answer seven simple questions. Seven is my lucky number. Seven is the magic number. It is amazing how seven simple questions can be so difficult to answer. Here goes:

1. WHERE WERE YOU TEN YEARS AGO?
Languishing in London in a new and ultimately doomed relationship, struggling with a long stretch of unemployment, and dealing with my teenage children and their social workers.

2. WHAT'S ON YOUR TO-DO LIST TODAY?

I just drove nine hours, so... relax and exercise...if you understand me.

Those two can go together.

Work on my five accents for Catch-22.
Go over the Dromios for tomorrow's Comedy of Errors.
Talk to my wife.

3. WHAT IF YOU WERE A BILLIONAIRE?
If you met my wife, you would know that I already am.

4. FIVE PLACES YOU HAVE LIVED?
New York, London, Toronto, St Peter Port, and Oslo.

5. THREE BAD HABITS?
So many to choose from... procrastination, fingernail biting and not going to the dentist(see below).

6. SNACKS YOU LIKE?
Coca Cola, Cadbury's Fruit & Nut and Strawberry Slimfast.

7. WHO AM I TAGGING?
Anna's Adventures in Wonderland- a beautiful female spirit.
About Last Night – diverse NYC arts journal blog
Englishman in New York Freelance writer Paul Berger - always interesting

* Emergence has just told me that I was supposed to give seven word answers to these seven questions. My Fourth Bad Habit: Not enough attention to the small details.

Some Like It Hot

2008-09-27T17:59:00.019-04:00

Some people slow down with age, and some glimpse a faraway light, increase their workload, and take things at a breathless rush. This summer, after reconnecting with England and family and friends, I returned to New York and began the most hectic summer of my life.

The first mountain to climb was Malvolio. I was nervous. I know other good actors have tried to play this sad and comic Twelfth Night character… and failed, by their own admission. A recent good performance by an Aquila actor was hard to dismiss from my head. I felt undeniably intimidated.

But a deep breath in… and beginning as usual to shadowbox with the character, and then through the assured guidance of Allegra Libonati, a young director with a confident eye and indomitable spirit, Malvolio began to take shape in front of me.
Eventually, when I was ready, I stepped gingerly into his shoes.

It’s not often that I take a character home, but Malvolio would not be shaken off. So, for five weeks, part of his moody, pessimistic and negative energy found its way into every other area of my life.

I seemed to be battling and censorious with everyone around me. One such battle? - the yellow stockings. We had updated the play to the 1920s and director and designer had decided on yellow socks and sock suspenders. As I came to know the character I knew this wasn’t the way I wanted to go. If he was to wear yellow stockings and to be cross-gartered, it seemed that a more theatrical and outrageous step - and surely ‘outrageous’ was what Shakespeare had in mind - was to make him wear women’s stockings and a garter belt. A recent memory of an evening with Eddie Izzard tottering down Broadway in a tight denim skirt and fishnet tights would not leave my mind. There followed much discussion with designer and director over what that might entail and whether the New Canaan audience would be comfortable with a cross-dresser in their midst. A small fracas ensued which ended when I wore a very fetching yellow dress on top of yellow stockings and women’s shoes at the first dress rehearsal. A compromise was reached and I was finally dressed in bright yellow tights with black lace-up women’s shoes and bright yellow sunglasses. I’m still not sure who was fighting for this costume: Malvolio or me.

Twelfth Night at New Canaan was a great critical success. The show itself was hard work, this being an outdoor venue and the set being a large pool in the middle of the stage. Two dress rehearsals were delayed by ferocious thunderstorms - if there’s one place you don’t want to be in a thunderstorm it’s in the middle of a field surrounded by electricity and a large pool of water. Despite all the difficulties, the family of Libonati prevailed and overcame all obstacles to put on a great production in a brilliant setting. It’s people like these that actors and theatre-goers put up shrines to and worship.

In the last week of the run, I rehearsed and performed Brutus for Aquila in a shortened Julius Caesar at the Lincoln Center Institute.

Then it was straight into rehearsals for The Iliad which we took to the island of Syros, a day after I finished Twelfth Night. The Iliad was performed in a smaller replica of La Scala Theatre. During the day I swam in the harbor, and played with our directors children on the beach, and as usual frightened anyone within earshot by going through my lines… from three different plays.

Returning to New York, it was straight into a week of rehearsals for Catch-22 which ended in a successful one-off performance at Huntington, Long Island.

Immediately we traveled back to the city and began rehearsals for the Aquila 2008/9 tour of the Iliad (Book One). Two weeks later it was shelved and I was rehearsing Brutus again. The end product was four performances of Julius Caesar in an exquisite replica of The Globe at the Neuss Festival in Germany. I was sad to say goodbye to Brutus, but after a year-long journey, this homage to Shakespeare was a fitting place to leave him.

After a brief two day break, in which Heidi and I escaped to the island of Sandy Hook and celebrated our first wedding anniversary, I returned to New York to begin the biggest challenge of all: playing the twin Dromios in Comedy of Error

Now I am on the tour.
The Dromios are far and away the most physical performances I have attempted on the stage… more than Caliban for Shared Experience, more than Bottom in Aquila’s New York A Midsummer Night’s Dream, more than Tom in the Water Babies in the West End: the biggest role for a teenager in a musical, which I played at 15. I have survived - but only just. My body has been strained to its limits. It nearly packed up altogether when we transferred to an icy theatre for the technical rehearsals. My back seized up for two days and I couldn’t walk, let alone do forward rolls, back rolls, dancing, running, jumping, prat-falls and the rest of all the clowning that makes up the two roles.

And yet I have come through and part of that is due to having prepared as well as I could for the physical rigors. My training and gym work began in earnest in December 2007 and continued throughout this year. I ran almost every day, strengthened my upper body, brought my weight down 14 pounds and worked on greater flexibility. The older I get the harder I work to keep fit. The gym is hard and often tedious; the rewards however are easy to identify: greater physical strength, improved stamina and increased breath control - vital for the big theatres we encounter on tour.

And just as I’ve got the Dromios under my belt and have the physical jerks screwed into my body’s memory, I am to leave the tour early.
I will return to Catch-22 after first working on it a year and a half ago and present Major Major, Doc Daneeka, the Father, the Old Man and Major Sanderson at the Lucille Lortelle Theatre on Christopher Street in New York’s West Village during November and December.

I hate to leave my fellow tour actors, but New York and Catch-22 and the chance to play four great American characters is too exciting to ignore. I always thought that the piece would make it to the city. I had a good feeling about it. At a recent publicity event at the Brooklyn Book Festival we read excerpts from the play. The reaction was one of delight and recognition. It was only afterwards I realized that I was doing a Brooklyn accent in the middle of Brooklyn. It was pause for thought. Yesterday I spent an hour on the phone with Paul Meir of Kansas University honing up the voices and accents of all my five Catch-22 characters.

But before I go… and just when you think you’ve seen it all…

We are playing the full Comedy of Errors for a schools matinee audience in New Albany, Ohio. The high school kids are lapping up the physical comedy, the sexual innuendo, and the violence and slapstick of this early Shakespeare. I run out just before the end of the first act and look out into the audience. I am amazed to see them leaving en masse. I steam through the penultimate scene of the first act with James as the theatre empties. The curtain comes down before we finish. The show is over.

We eventually hear that some of the high school kids had been accompanied by parents who had come as chaperons. The parents had complained about the ‘content’ of the show to the principal of the school.

I am asked about the walkout in the pre-show talk before that evening’s performance of Comedy. I answer as best I can.
Did they think Shakespeare was safe for their children? Would the violence of Macbeth or even Titus Andronicus been more palatable? How about the sexual innuendo in Romeo and Juliet? The theatre isn’t meant to be safe. The parents had obviously not been in an audience of adolescents in full cry - a delighted uproar - at our Comedy of Errors. Perhaps the physical antics were too broad for their taste, but the beatings, the sexual puns and innuendo are all in the text. It’s political of course and the same thing happened in Shakespeare’s time… and although I’m saddened by the kids being deprived of a play they were obviously enjoying, I am in no way surprised.

We hear later that, apparently, New Albany is a bubble - a new town built on old farming land with pseudo-Georgian architecture everywhere. The beautiful new Arts Center is only recently opened, but of course Art is a Pandora’s Box containing dangerous themes and ideas which can challenge the status quo… as well as stimulate the young minds of repressed adolescents.

It is interesting to be an observer when politics becomes involved with theatre. I was touring the UK with the first National tour of The Normal Heart in 1988.. Section 28 had just been passed. The amendment stated that a local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship".
The Normal Heart dealt with the outbreak of Aids in New York and featured a gay relationship. I was in constant contact with Ian McKellen who was fighting the Clause. I kept him informed with the reaction around the country to our production.
There was only positive feedback. And no one walked out…

... except my brother Robin, who couldn’t bear to see me kiss another man.

A postscript to my last blog:
My daughter Samantha is expecting a baby at the end of March. It is possible that at the time of the birth, the baby’s grandfather might be on the West Coast throwing himself around a stage like a six year-old and dressed as a clown.

Adventure and the Difficult Way

2008-09-01T21:00:00.041-04:00

There is a land that I can go to
When I have time to rest.
All the people I love are there
And those who love me best.

-Marianne Faithfull,

Malvolio, Brutus, the Dromios, Major Major, Sanderson, the Old Man, the New York Father, the Priest, Zeus: Greece, Germany, New Canaan, Huntington, New York: jet lag, ferry lag, five days’ rehearsal, one day’s rehearsal: thunderstorms and lightening, heat wave and 100% humidity: Twelfth Night, Catch-22, Coals to Newcastle - The Iliad to Greece; and hot coals - Julius Caesar in a replica Globe Theatre in Germany…
It’s been a busy summer.

Malvolio and The Iliad on Syros and Catch-22
(Double click for bigger images)

The Caesar Men in Nuess

Before it all began, I took some time to recover from the tour and reconnect with Heidi after two months apart. Long walks, romantic suppers, intentions, long-term plans, dreams, feeling as one and at peace.

Then life took off into a frenzied swirl of frantic visits and high-emotional meetings.
Whoosh…

A trip to Northern Ontario to see Heidi’s family, time with the sisters, Marja, Rebekah, and Leah; the brothers, Johnnie and Mark; our nephew Wyatt, our nieces Fiona and Maddi and Maia; my in-laws Meg and Paul: the grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary: the sisters singing together; walking across the grassy knoll where the family’s house once stood before it burnt to the ground, learning lines in the May morning sun on a glistening lake-lapping bank…

Then whoosh…
… a flight to England to introduce Heidi to my family.
England in Spring… looking its absolute best - verdant, ancient earth, new buds opening, the damp new flowering smell and the greenest of green.

Trips to Hastings - sea spray, fish smell, damp shingle, breathless cliff walk, a South Downs round of golf with the brothers, my children, my childhood friend Dougal... and the meeting with my mentor and mother, my amazing gifted and fit 86 year old stepfather, George, my niece Imogen, her mother Cathy, her partner Kim, and my brother Robin, Julie… and my nephew, Zak, who, by a joke of nature, is exactly like me.

A trip to London and time with my brothers, Russell and Rupert, my son Charley, my daughter, Sam, and her boyfriend Andrew: new trains, new buildings, ancient buildings, the Globe, the Actors Church, old pubs…

A trip to Leicester, seeing Ken and Louise and their boys on the way. Then on to my reassuringly chatty father, and my indomitable stepmother, Pat; old photographs from childhood, old videos of embarrassing younger self, the new theatre The Curve, a good curry…

A trip to Stratford and a cozy bed & breakfast, memories of past lives here, childhood dream and adult longing rekindled, a building site where the theatre stands, innards exposed and revamped to a thrust stage; the temporary theatre The Courtyard, the stand-in and preview of what is to come; a walk through the church, homage to Shakespeare’s grave, the Avon swans, the weir, a pre-show talk with director Greg Doran, the actors warm-up in the balcony; an entertaining Midsummer’s Night Dream, supper in the Dirty Duck and starlit walk through the ancient echoing deserted Stratford streets.

Back to Hastings and a thoroughly boozy and entertaining lunch for my mother’s 70th.

Then on to friends: Luke & Hannah in their beautiful home; Emma and Milly in Rochester, My coz, Emma, who I hadn't seen for 25 years and her family in Liverpool, and cozy overnight stays with Guy, Sarah and Bronte in Woking.

A trip to the Lake District…
But now we have to slow down for the words in my head are demanding detail and description.

Okay.
Picture this:

My children grew up as inner city kids.
Charley is 26 and large for his small frame. The drink is starting to show in his face, but he retains a sharp sense of humor and a sweet generosity of spirit… when he’s away from the dark side.
Samantha is 22 and beautiful; peaches and cream skin, startling light blue eyes and a smile that can light up a room. She also carries her past around like a dark shroud, has a defensive negative side, and the pain of a recent miscarriage has given her a sorrowful light.
They have grown up street-smart; a blessing as they both left school at 12! Too long a story to retell here. Their teens were a constant round of social workers, court visits and personal dramas. Now they are both in their twenties and the dramas continue…however they are still here; not something that can be taken for granted considering their background.
I wanted to spend time with them away from them the chaos of the city.

I spent six weeks in Eskdale filming a children’s TV series in the 70s called Soldier & Me. I remembered it as a beautiful part of the Lake District. I wanted to show it to Heidi, to show her how contrasting the English countryside can be. For Charley and Sam, it was to a chance for them to breathe fresh air, spend time with us, and to perhaps get a perspective on their disordered lives.
Samantha was packed and ready to go, but Charley was in distress.
“I can’t go, Dad.”
“Why not, Charley-boy?”
“I got to go for this interview at the job centre on Monday otherwise they’re going to stop my money.”
“Can’t you be a day late? Phone them, make an excuse.”
“I can’t. They’ll stop my money. They said this was my last chance.”
Deep breath in. I mustn’t show disappointment, anger or frustration.
“Charley, you have to make a choice.”
“I know. I can’t…”
“Listen to me. How many times can we do this? When will we get a chance to do this again? I think you should come with us. I think it’s very important that you come with us and I can’t tell you why.”

“But they’ll stop my money.”
“Charley, that’s the worst that could happen. So? You get a job. You find another way to get money. Come with us.”
Twenty minutes of anguished debate later, Charley makes his decision and accompanies me to the car and moodily throws his bag in the trunk. As we leave London, his mood lifts, and an hour later, he is excited, happily joking with Heidi and asking questions about the long-ago Soldier & Me.

Soldier and Me was filmed all around Eskdale. I was playing Pavel Szolda, the ‘Soldier’ of the title, who, along with his English friend, Jim, witnesses a murder and is chased all over the Lake District by the villains. It was filmed over nine episodes for Granada TV and went out on a Sunday teatime. I had recently returned from Cyprus playing the young cabin boy Jeremiah in the Peter Sellers film ‘Ghost in the Noonday Sun’. Now aged 16 and in full-blown adolescence, I hated the short hair, glasses and short trousers I had to wear for my bookish character. It was a long way from the glamorous cool film actor that I wanted to be. But once the clothes were on, and the camera rolling, the character took me over completely. And I fell in love with the Lake District.

Now, I wanted to show the rugged and unique English countryside to my city children and to Heidi, but I also wanted to revisit my memories and to send out a silent prayer to my fellow actor and friend, who played Jim. He threw himself under a train twelve years later.

The Woolpack Inn has been in Eskdale for four hundred years. Used in its beginnings as a place for farmers to stay on their way to the bigger towns delivering their valuable sheep wool, it is now a simple Inn, its charm being its unsurpassed beautiful location, a decent restaurant… and its own brewery: the latter was the swaying factor when I chose this place as the resting stop on our Lake District adventure.

Of course, I forgot the thing that most fathers would not leave home without.
I thought I knew the way from my father’s house where we had stopped overnight, giving my children a rare sighting of their grandfather and step-grandmother. So, without a map - a bloody map! - we found ourselves driving about thirty miles further than we needed to. By the time we reached the beautiful village of Boot, it was nearly five o’clock. Determined to grab every second of our time, I persuaded a tired Heidi and my reluctant children into a walk by the River Esk. I had looked it up online and it was the perfect distance for an evening stroll. We set off along a couple of narrow lanes, down a broad path to the old stone Doctor Bridge. There we turned left, following the beautiful flowered-covered path which followed the bubbling river. Charley was chatting happily, but Sam fell silent; a black mood had descended on her. She started picking flowers as we walked. Heidi and I looked back with concern. A couple of miles later and we reached the small Church of St Catherine’s.

There has been a church on this spot since the 12th century. The setting is magnificent, with a backdrop of Scafell Pike and set on the banks of the Esk, next to an ancient bridge of Stepping Stones. It is said that in the sixth century a Hermit lived on Arment Hill - quarter of a mile east of the church. People used to travel miles to seek his prayers and healing. His Well is still recognizable and some of the farmers still draw water from it when they bring their children to Baptism in the Church. The position of the Church is determined by both the presence of the Holy Well and the Stepping Stones - it is very ancient. Fortunately the Victorians did not spoil its simplicity when they rebuilt it - a barn, beside a river, under the mountains.

And it was here that Sam - in the cool tranquil interior - laid her flowers beside the altar and prayed. Only afterwards, as we left the church for the return journey, did she break down in tears. It was then she revealed that the prayers and flowers were for her unborn child, Angel, which she lost earlier in the year.

On the way back, I led us across the river and followed its meandering course on the opposite bank. I thought there must be some way to cross the river on our return journey, but after a tiring trek over stones, barbed wire and tree branches, it became apparent that we would have to turn back or return to the opposite bank by wading across. Heidi decided to retrace our steps and Charley went with her, but Sam kept following me.

I took off my shoes and rolled up my trousers and dipped my feet into the river. It was freezing. I asked Sam if she wouldn’t rather go and find Heidi and Charley, but she shook her head.

Taking a deep breath, I slowly waded across the fast-flowing water. The going was tough because of the slipperiness of the stones on the river’s bed and the coldness of the river which made my feet go numb, but eventually I made it to the opposite bank. I tuned back to watch Sam’s progress; at the same time my heart was aching.

I felt a failure as a father. Aren’t we supposed to be able to get stuff like this right, know the best route and keep our kids happy and safe? I had got us lost on the road and now had managed to do the same thing on an evening riverbank stroll when all my daughter needed was a quiet walk back and a stiff drink back at our Inn.

Halfway across I shouted to Sam to see if she needed any help. Again a furious shake of the head. I knew I was in for a daughter tirade when she reached me. I watched her anxiously and massaged my cold feet. Eventually Sam climbed out of the water, and up the bank to meet me.
“Sam, I’m so sorry…” I started to say.
Sam cut me off with a gale of laughter and hugged me.
“I enjoyed it,” she said between her chuckles.
“Well it seemed like a good idea at the time…”
“Always does with you. We’re so much alike, Dad.”
I looked at her and opened my arms and made a face which asked “Why?”
“We like the adventure and the difficult way.”

We walked back to the Inn and marched up to the bar and ordered two large drinks. Sitting in the window, with a log fire glowing in a corner of the room, we talked… of those things that fathers and grown-up daughters have talked about down the ages… and watched the early summer light fade over Scarfell Pike.

Shakespeare and the Omaha

2008-04-17T22:18:00.010-04:00

For Scott:
without him this would
have been a much harder and less
rewarding experience.

One of my earliest memories: I was four, perhaps five.
It was different from my other toys. It wasn’t handmade.
My father placed it at my feet on Christmas Day…
… and I loved it.

My Wild West Fort was made of wood which pieced together at the sides. The wood was orange and smelt of a distant pine forest. The fort came with tiny blue-suited cavalrymen with rifles aimed high on their shoulders. White plastic horses pulled a red plastic stagecoach.
And then there were the Indians.
Their small brown bodies seated on horseback, war-paint adorning their skin, bows raised and ready to fire. The feathers in their headdresses were colorful and strange. I spent many happy hours guiding the stagecoach to the safety of the fort where my Indians would attack as the coach approached the wooden gates. From the battlements, the cavalrymen fired, picking off the Indians one by one. When the battle was desperate and the stagecoach surrounded, the cavalrymen ran out, formed a line and started shooting. After enough Indians had been killed - and I deemed it safe - cavalrymen, stagecoach and white horses ran hell-for-leather into the security of the fort... my Wild West Fort.

When I was first told that I would be taking Shakespeare into an all-Native American school on an Indian reservation, it sounded romantic and appealing; a chance to pass on something beautiful and universal to those minority students from our ‘corrupted palate’.
Scott and I were to leave the tour for three days, stay in Sioux City and commute to the Umonhon Nation Public School in Macy, Nebraska.
Our task was to complement work that had been already been set in motion. We would hold Shakespeare student workshops, one teacher workshop, and rehearse a short extract with both students and teachers. The whole exercise was to culminate in a public show in the school gymnasium, followed by the students’ attendance at our Aquila guided tour performance of Julius Caesar at the Lied Center in Lincoln.

It sounded so promising… in the beginning.

I pitied thee,
Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
One thing or other. When thou didst not, savage,
Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like
A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes
With words that made them known. (The Tempest 1.2.424–30)

Shakespeare’s Caliban, based on the first native Americans the explorers of the New World encountered, is described as half-man and half-beast. When I set about playing him for Shared Experience in 1997 that description endeared me to him. So… he’s human!
Shakespeare had read Montaigne's "Of Cannibals," an essay that argues that American Indians lived a naturally virtuous life uncorrupted by civilization.

"I find that there is nothing barbarous and savage in this nation, by anything that I can gather, excepting, that every one gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country. As, indeed, we have no other level of truth and reason, than the example and idea of the opinions and customs of the place wherein we live: there is always the perfect religion, there the perfect government, there the most exact and accomplished usage of all things. They are savages at the same rate that we say fruit are wild, which nature produces of herself and by her own ordinary progress; whereas in truth, we ought rather to call those wild, whose natures we have changed by our artifice, and diverted from the common order. In those, the genuine, most useful and natural virtues and properties are vigorous and sprightly, which we have helped to degenerate in these, by accommodating them to the pleasure of our own corrupted palate." (Of Cannibals, Montaigne)

Unfortunately, the coming generations of immigrants were less enlightened and Native American subjugation became a guilty stain on United States history. Now here we were, trekking out to teach an archaic poetic language -albeit a beautiful one - to a people fighting to save their own.
Fifteen minutes after curtain down on an evening Catch-22 performance in Kearney, NE, we set off for Sioux City. Wind swirled across the plains, buffeting our car for the duration of the four hour drive. The casino lighthouse lighting up the sky as we approached Sioux City mirrored the spotlight beams we shine around the theatre in performances of Catch-22. At 2am we staggered into the bland hotel and fell into our beds.

Teaching Native American kids on a reservation appeared to be an inspired idea. Shakespeare speaks to everyone. How wonderful to teach him to these young people .
I quickly revised my romantic notions after John Mangan, the music teacher and our contact at the Umonhon Nation Public School, replied to my request for a little background information on the teenagers that were to be our students.

John wasn’t absolutely sure how many students we would be working with – but he thought no more than fifteen. Part of the reservation problem, he said, was student attendance.
Three teachers were combining their classes for this experience – two of them were members of the Omaha Tribe. All three had been working with the kids on reading the Julius Caesar script.

John wrote that the kids came from an extremely difficult socio-cultural lifestyle – Indians living in a white world, many had grown up with inferiority complexes, chips on their shoulders, hearing blame from their older peers and parents heaped on the white man. Many of them had totally negative attitudes toward authority figures, teachers, principals, and police. A large number of high school boys knew the inside of various correctional institutions intimately.

Alcohol, drugs, teenage parenting, single-parent families, kids taking care of brothers and sisters while mom and boyfriend were out drinking and so on - these difficult backgrounds made their lives very difficult.
Quite a number were being raised by grandparents, many of them had no male role model at home, and emotional problems ran rampant. All of this had led to ridiculously poor attendance and limited academic success, especially among the High School kids. John had worked at the school for forty years, teaching the parents of 90% of the present day students. They had all exhibited the same behaviors as the current crop.
Better economic conditions and better homes hadn’t changed the basic life-outlook.

But John also reassured us that we would see a lot of beauty and effort among the kids. The Omaha culture was not a day-to-day experience for the students – but it was still very much alive in the community. He said he had been adopted into two families many years before, and, with the extended kinship system of the Omaha Tribe, he was related to most of the community. He could call them his sons, daughters, nieces, brothers, sisters, grand-children. That relationship with the kids sometimes made it easier for him to have more success with them than perhaps others might. He hoped we would have time to visit some of his Band classes and see this beauty and effort for ourselves.
“Heck, I know you will,“ he wrote “I’ll make it happen.”

Early, on our first morning, the school minibus drove us the 40 minutes out to the Umonhon Nation Public School. On the way, our chirpy Omaha driver regaled us with stories of life on the reservation. His description was so optimistic and upbeat, that by the time we arrived at the bleak grey town in the middle of the Nebraska prairie we were looking forward to the day. On John’s advice, we had already persuaded the school to cancel the public performance and replace it with another Shakespeare workshop.
May be John’s analysis had been too pessimistic.

He was waiting for us by the school entrance. A wiry bearded man in his 60s with a pulsating energy and bounding enthusiasm, John swept us up and rushed upstairs to the morning ‘circle up’, a voluntary meeting with few students and teachers in attendance. The leader of the meeting had an announcement - the death of a good friend to the school. The body, she said, would lie on public show in a local community hall for four days, as was the Omaha custom, enabling friends and family to pay their respects. The students that were there leant listlessly against the walls.
At its finish, everyone turned towards the stars and stripes and recited the oath of allegiance.
As we followed John down the stairs, he apologized for the poor turn-out.
“Usually there’s more people there and it’s such a shame they didn’t sing the Omaha anthem.”
Set aside from the main buildings was a low brick building. This was the Band Room where for forty years John, with his immense enthusiasm, had cajoled and encouraged a love for making music. Now, the building was named after him.
We sat in his office on two low chairs as John poured us two large mugs of coffee.
“Don’t expect too big a turn-out,” he said "I’ve raced around the school for the past two weeks encouraging students and teachers alike to come to your workshops. I told them… a chance like this doesn’t happen that often.”
He sighed and looked out of the window.
“It’s not so easy to inspire the people here.”

The classroom in the main school building - our home for the next few days - was not an ideal space for physical Shakespeare workshops. However, we were determined at the outset to be positive with all the obstacles we had been promised. Not waiting to ask permission, we pushed all the furniture back to the walls.
Then waited nervously until…
A bell rang.
And our students ambled into the room.

John’s description was painfully accurate.
They shuffled in… resentment and fear in their eyes, hands in pockets, chewing gum. They longed to be anywhere but here, where they had been forced to come.
After an awkward introduction by their wary teachers, we leapt into a warm up with our usual repertoire of theatre games. The response was nervous shuffling and sniggering. Many averted their eyes and some simply refused to participate.
I exchanged glances with Scott. Our expectations had to be severely lowered.
It was everything we had feared…but worse.
We struggled on for a painful hour and half and made it through to lunch.

“How’s it going?” asked John cheerfully.
“Well, it’s not easy, but I expect you know all about that,” I replied.
He nodded, but remained silent.

***

It had been built in the style of an Omaha earth lodge.
“They built the ceiling too high,” the elder said mournfully.
She was a small woman in her fifties with a pleasant face and a sadness behind her dark eyes. John had promised to show us the school’s culture center and the elder welcomed us warmly and then sat us like children at her feet.
“John says you want to know something about our history, yes?”

The Omaha Indian nation were the inhabitants of a large territory to the west of the Missouri river. They originally lived on the Atlantic coast but over time migrated west until, by the 17th Century, they had settled in Missouri. The Omaha lived in tipis during the summer period when they were hunting and in earthen lodges over the winter. They were hunters and planters, in accordance with the seasons. During the planting season the men would clear the fields in preparation for planting, whereupon the women would actually do the planting. Hunting was the responsibility of the men, with buffalo, deer, bear and small mammals being the targets. Back home, the Omaha women were skilled craftspeople. They made pots, wove baskets and made tools from bone and wood.

The Omaha were also a musical people. From an early age children were taught to make instruments, as well as to play them. The pow wow, invented by the Omaha, was a highlight of the Omaha social calendar. In pre-settlement times, the Omaha had a very intricately developed social structure closely tied to the tribe’s belief of an inseparable union between sky and earth. This union, viewed as critical to the continuation of all living things, was spread throughout Omaha culture. The tribe was divided into two moieties, Sky and Earth people. Sky people were responsible for the tribe's spiritual needs and Earth people for the tribe's physical welfare.

Driven from that land, however, by the Dakota Indians, by the mid 1700s they were dwelling in the area of modern day Nebraska and this is where they first encountered the white man.
In 1854 a reservation was established for the Omaha people in Nebraska and this is where they still live today. The word Omaha means ‘those who go upstream’ or ‘against the current.’

“Our language is fading away,” the old lady sighed. “The elders who pass it on are gradually dying. The main drawback of our tribe… we are so reticent… shy. Many of us have been damaged by our background. Not that long ago tribe members were bused into the city of Omaha… to work the menial jobs. Many of our children are from broken homes, and there is a lot … a lot of poverty. I hope your Shakespeare workshop will encourage our students to participate just a little more.”
She fell silent and a heavy melancholy overcame her. I could offer no words of comfort. After the morning’s experience, expecting the students to participate appeared like a forlorn hope.

The second workshop fared better, but then came to a grinding halt.
I asked Daniel, the most extroverted boy we had in the group, to try and soundlessly communicate the word ‘house’ to his partner. He was silent and shook his head.
“Come on, Daniel, “ I cried out in frustration, “you must have a memory that you can associate with the word ‘house’.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Good, then communicate that memory.”
“Can’t we go back to the other games?”
I walked over to him.
“Daniel, communicate the memory. Just try.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“My house… burned down.”

You taught me language; and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!

Later, John sympathized. We had trudged into his band-room and immediately whined about our frustrating day.
“Sit down and relax. I have something I want to show you.“
He had gathered together a group of his younger students to play us a short concert. Flutes, saxophones, trumpets and drums nervously sounded. The music was fragile, but the concentration and effort on the young faces moved us. For a finale, John persuaded a solemn boy to play his own composition on an Indian flute. The exquisite song hearkened back to a more innocent time - before the white man came - to the great spirits and ancestors. As the last note faded we applauded enthusiastically and were instantly surrounded by the rest of the younger bright-eyed children. Curious, open and confident they were a world away from our older students.
It was obvious… as they got older, something happened to the children here.

That evening, John drove us back to our hotel, taking a short detour on the way to give us a brief tour around the reservation. February is the bleakest month, one I have to survive. I’ll work and exercise like a fiend, or hibernate and wake up for Spring.
Nowhere in the North America looks its best in February‘s grey glow.
The Midwest is no exception.
However amongst the pallid squalor and the sepia tones that February painted over the drab town was added blights; piles of trash on the streets and broken windows in nearly every home.
That night we both needed a drink after the stress of the day. We had achieved very little in our workshops so far. Would we have any success in the days to come.

We had picked the bar at random. As we sat down, Scott gasped and pointed. The walls were covered in World War ll bomber memorabilia. We had walked into the world of Catch-22, our companion play to Julius Caesar.
A model B-25 bomber hung from the ceiling.
Flying jackets framed in glass cages hung on the walls.
And everywhere there were photographs of flying crews; in Germany, the South Pacific; even in Rome, where part of the story of Catch-22 takes place.
We laughed. Synchronicity was at work.
A short time later we would hear that there were plans to stage Catch-22 in New York in the Fall.

A good night’s sleep; a morning’s optimistic mood.
But Tuesday had its own problems.
This was an assessment day for the teachers. There was no school. Our workshops - one for the students and one for the teachers - were purely voluntary.
The first, a Caesar class, was a significant improvement; a smaller group and less peer pressure.

For the second class, the teachers workshop, we were asked to include some relaxation exercises. The teachers’ assessment day had been a nerve-racking experience apparently.
The turn-out was large; fifteen teachers.
Encouraged, we transferred the class to a bigger space and with Scott and I working in seamless tandem we bounded through the hour and a half workshop, doling out fun games and stress-free exercises. By the close we had gained the teacher’s respect and gratitude, and - more importantly - regained most of our shattered confidence.

That evening, John, once again, drove us to Sioux City, this time to meet his Shakespeare class at a local community theatre. These white kids, ranging in age from ten to fifteen, turned out to be a world away from his Native American students. A voluntary class, every single one of them was thrillingly turned-on to saying and acting Shakespeare. We learned with great amazement they had traveled solely to meet us and put on a show. One boy had driven an hour and a half. His parents took him there every week.
As an audience of two, for 45 minutes we were entranced by these uninhibited young people. Not only in love with the way Shakespeare sounded, they also reveled in how it made them feel. When the show had finished we heaped praise on them and I retold my exotic background in an effort to instil... what? - a love of theatre, Shakespeare or just pursuing one‘s art?…Who knows? May be all three. John’s motivational skills inspired and humbled us in equal measure. We marveled how two sets of his students could be so different.

***

The final day.
Our Omaha students started off rowdy and anarchic. A few were even more unresponsive than previous classes; some even refused to take part in the warm-up games. Was it crippling shyness or peer pressure or just un-cool?
Sometime am I
All wound with adders who with cloven tongues
Do hiss me into madness.

The ‘word story’ game is played with a group sitting in a circle. Each person says one word and then it moves on the next person and so on around the circle. The object is to start and finish a story as a group.
I had been told by one of the teachers that Native Americans found it difficult to think in the abstract, nonetheless, the words our students chose were depressing: ugly - bitch - slap... and so on.
It came round to Scott. Exasperated with the negative atmosphere, he cried out 'Love!'
The shyest girl in the room was next.
'No one' she whispered.

Then it happened - at the beginning of a new exercise, the whole pack of them stood still.
“Why won’t you do this guys?” Scott asked forcefully, “because, you know, if we can’t get you to do this… well, we are running out of ideas - fast. So what is it? Tell us, please?”
There was a silence.
We asked if they would like to leave ten minutes early.
A rush for the door… and then they were gone.
Scott and I looked at each other and I grimaced and shrugged my shoulders.
Had we got through to them at all?

We said our final goodbyes to John, after yet another impromptu concert in his band room. He tired to reassure us … we shouldn’t feel badly… that all the Macy teachers found it difficult to motivate the students… that’s if they even came to school.
Earlier a teacher had told us that on that day, out of a class of thirty, he had taught a class of three.

We drove out of Macy with barely a look back at the drab town, feeling guilty and relieved. The Aquila tour was comfortable and easy in comparison. We had found our experience taxing and surprisingly emotional. Making sense of it was going to be difficult.

***

Except it wasn’t the final chapter of our time with the Omaha.

We woke up on Friday morning to a snow storm in Lincoln. It seemed unlikely that the schools would make it through the storm. However a couple of hours later the weather cleared and the show was on. I was surprised. I felt excited… our kids from Macy were coming.

Our shortened version of Julius Caesar runs 47 minutes and tells the basic story of the play. The performance, for high school students, is followed by a Q & A.
The play finishes. The lights come up. We bow.
The applause and cheering was - as usual with these shows - raucous and ironic; young people enjoying making noise rather than a genuine ovation.
And as usual we actors lapped it up.
Looking out into the audience, I saw students yelling and hollering.
And then I saw our Macy students.
Shyly applauding, they were conspicuous in their reticence… except for one Native American boy.
Daniel.
He was on his feet, clapping and cheering.

Later, changed and make-up removed, we sought out our students.
Yes, our students.
We felt an undeniable connection with these troubled teens.
Faces shining, they were brimful of praise for the play. Fulfilling a promise we had made back in the classroom, Scott and I walked them backstage, showed them our dressing-rooms and then… on to the stage itself.
Watching their excitement and the sidelong glances they threw our way, I had a realization: through watching us perform, we had gained their respect.
When we had met them, they were shy and silent; now they strode and danced around the stage and looked out wide-eyed into the auditorium.
“It’s like American Idol up here, man.”

We are in a larger studio space for the Lied Center activities where two other schools had gathered. The organizer approaches and asks us to lead two 30 minute workshops . And why not?
We leap into a whole series of games, the same we had played with them in our unfriendly classroom. I notice our Macy students are smiling and more confident. They are delighted when they are singled out to demonstrate movement and sounds of particular exercises, thrilled that they are, for once, one step ahead of the more outgoing and vocal white students.
We smile as they shout and scream. To make any sound - for them - is a huge achievement.
Standing back, we watch… like proud parents.
This thing of darkness
I acknowledge mine.

Later. Much later.
I talk to Scott. Did we achieve anything here?
Initially, we motivated them hardly at all. They appreciated we had gone to their school. They sat bemused when we desperately endeavoured to turn them on to Shakespeare. It was an environment not so different from the Harlem school where Aquila completed another difficult but ultimately triumphant institute.
When we are honest with ourselves we know we could only hope to achieve a small amount of success in four days. It will take more time -much more time - to gain their trust and respect.

But…
… an artistic spark had ignited, and in its faint glow the troubled kids of the Umonhon Nation Public School had caught a glimpse of a ‘brave new world’.
They had been shown an artistic nirvana, a place where outsiders and outcasts have always worked and been treated as equals, whatever their background.
The Theatre.

***

One summer’s day my father threw away my Wild West Fort. He threw out all our toys.
Childish things were for children. As teenagers, we were now too old for toy forts.
I remember that I loved my cavalrymen.
Their uniforms and yellow scarves seemed glamorous to my young eyes.
But I never told anyone my guilty secret…

I loved my brightly-painted Indians more.

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.

***

April 6th 2008: Richard is 50.
I am fifty. My half century.
It should be celebrated.
And I will.
In the best way I know how… walking out on to a stage.
I am born. It is Easter Sunday morning in Stratford-upon-Avon... 11 o’clock.
My mother writes:
I remember when you first came out. I was listening to the bells from Shakespeare's church at Stratford sounding over the river for the Easter Sunday service. I dedicated you to the theatre. Too late now, of course, - they've started refurbishment...I loved the place…. church bells for matins (in pain!)...They wrapped you in a pink cellular blanket to show you to me first of all ...like a little alien...all creamy with black hair and great big blue eyes! Alien to me that is - my family all pink and blue-ish and very fair skinned with a lot of red hair in the family...
…and you had a deeper cry than the others ..

***

My fifth Aquila tour finishes tomorrow.
I have been living with these two plays for ten months.
I have been living with these actors for between four and seven months. As always it’s the parts that keep me motivated. Brutus has been a good companion. As before, I find that after about 30 performances I feel the character take me over. The holy grail is to find ways to shorten that journey. Intense gym work and the usual tour winter diet have made me lean and match-fit. I notice it not so much in the physical demands, but in the vocal gymnastics and breath control that Shakespeare demands of his bigger characters . I enjoy the ease and feeling of control I have on the stage.
I have a great mixture of characters in Catch-22 and these have been a wonderful bonus. I will return to Brutus when we take it to the Nuess festival in Germany in August. I hope to return to some, if not all, of my Catch-22 characters in New York sometime in the next year.

I feel most at home on stage… and that is reassuring… but…
I need to make another home now.
My own home.
A place to share with Heidi… a place to put my books.
I haven’t had all my books in one place for seven years.

There is a world elsewhere…

Time Ripples

2008-02-02T21:08:00.025-05:00

Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin. (Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams)

Caterpillar: Who are YOU?
Alice: This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. I -- I hardly know, sir, just at present -- at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then. (Alice In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll)

I stare at the form in disbelief.
Immigration have asked me to list everything I have done in every month since I turned eighteen.
I am an actor. My eighteenth birthday was a long time ago.
There have been many jobs.
There have been many upheavals, constant traveling and broken relationships.
How am I going to do this?
Bureaucracy stares back.
The form is not interested in ‘how’.

This is going be painful.
Deep breath in.
Here I go… I’m going in.

February 1978: Richard is 20.
I don’t know what to make of the softly spoken actor. Tall, Byronically handsome, he has a pulsating energy field around him which turns in on itself, throwing up a protective shield when strangers try to become close. Once we start rehearsing however, I am fascinated by his raw power and amazing transformation.
There are seven of us. We are all playing un-teachable teenagers who end up teaching themselves at a ghetto South London school. Class Enemy had opened at the Royal Court a couple of years earlier. This is the first time it has been seen outside of London. Every other word is fuck or cunt.
And Bristol Old Vic Theatre is nervous.
Very nervous.

February 1980: Richard is 22.
The day is a maelstrom of manic energy. Our young director is under pressure. The classic television programme Doctor Who is a machine; a time machine.
And there’s only so much time to be had in the Studio 14 of the BBC Centre.

In the pressure cooker of this recording day, I buzz around the sets, my concentration is absolute. Inside I’m jumping with excitement. I am acting, at last, on my favorite TV programme. The one that I loved throughout my childhood. Like every other boy of my age, I was deeply scared by its monsters. I actually did hide behind our sofa.
The latest incarnation of Doctor Who is eccentric, powerful, and has an integral say in the programme’s creative process.
Unfortunately, since the first day of rehearsals, things have not run smoothly.

The Doctor is refusing to talk to the actress who plays his female assistant. Communication between them is achieved by surreptitious notes passed around the rehearsal room.
She is distraught. I discover there is a personal as well as professional relationship between them.
I console her as best I can. When she says she cannot come out for a drink because he will be there, I pull her out of the North Acton Hilton (the nickname for the BBC rehearsal rooms), drag her into the pub and up to the bar. The Doctor glances up from his table and immediately looks away.
“A bit of jealousy will do him good.” I reassure my anxious new friend.
“Stroppy bastard!”
She smiles at me nervously and orders a large gin and tonic.

The Doctor has a good reason to be ‘stroppy’. The producer has introduced a new boy character into the series. He will also be the Doctor’s assistant, joining his estranged female companion. This has happened without the Doctor’s knowledge or agreement when the Doctor was away on holiday. He has returned suntanned and determined to make producer and director suffer for their subterfuge.
Young Matthew is new to acting and it shows. We are kept longer than most at rehearsals to give him acting lessons.
I am playing his heroic brother and I am excited. For the first time I am to die on TV, murdered by the Marshmen.

Now we are recording.
The Tardis, the Doctor’s time machine, is an old police telephone box. It is cramped and stuffy and the door doesn’t close properly. In the programme, the inside of the Tardis is huge. It takes up one half of the studio. The console room 'time rotor', a plastic cylinder which goes up and down when the Tardis travels through different time dimensions, has broken down. A huge sweaty prop man crawls underneath and moves it with his back.
Problems keep arising; there are many delays.
This is the last filming day and I realize that time is running out. A young floor manager runs up to me.
“Peter was wondering… he apologizes… if you wouldn’t mind skipping your death scene as time is so short?”
Something snaps. My precious death scene is the only thing that has kept me going through all the madness of Doctor Who tantrums, complicated personal relationships and inner BBC politics.
“Listen, we rehearsed it for three weeks for Christ‘s Sake. If it was good enough to rehearse, then it’s good enough now. I am not going to change it. Let’s do it!”
I have spoken too loudly. The studio goes quiet.
The Doctor looks over quizzically, and then, imperceptibly… smiles.
I am murdered beautifully, heroically… and in one take.

June 1999: Richard is 41.
I have crept out early. I leave her sleeping. It’s 6am and Venice is quiet. I wander aimlessly down the narrow streets and over the tiny bridges. I pass the Palazzi Barbaro, the Ca' Rezzonico, the Ca' d'Oro, the Palazzo Dario, the Ca' Foscari, Palazzo Barbarigo and the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni. I gaze up at the basilica of Santa Maria della Salute. I cross a deserted St Marks Square and take in the Palazzo Ducale di Venezia. Eventually I stand on the Rialto bridge and watch the sun come up over the Lagoon.
I am sad.
She is unreachable.
But last night there had been a glimmer of hope.

Last night we had succumbed to being typical tourists.
She is not keen, but I insist that we have to take the nighttime ride in a gondola. Our gondolier is a non-stop talker. A stream of history and local trivia regales us as we glide down the dark achromatic canals. I glance at her.
She looks away.
The terrible sadness that surrounds her is palpable, even in the dark.
She allows me to pull her close.
We lay back and let our guide settle into his patter. His loud voice echoes off the ancient buildings.
I long for the silence. I want to listen to the oily black water lapping against the stones. I want to hear the local Italian shouts echoing down the alleyways, I want to imagine Othello, Canaletto, Marco Polo, Bellini, Volpone, Casanova, the Doges.
I want to summon their ghosts, and revive the one in my arms.
I want to make her happy.

We glide towards the Bridge of Sighs.
A local legend says that lovers will be assured eternal love if they kiss on a gondola at sunset under the bridge.
“Now, you must make a wish and kiss!” our guide exclaims cheerfully.
I take her in my arms, kiss her unresponsive lips and wish…
I wish I could take away the pain.
I wish I could give her the options she feels she doesn’t have. I wish I had an income to support her, so she could give up work completely. I wish I could take away the fear and the self recrimination. I wish she would believe in me. In us. Our future.
I wish I could take away the pain.
If only for a moment.

As she pulls away, we enter the expansive water of the Lagoon.
Suddenly there is light…explosions and fantastic multi-colored lights. Fireworks fizz over our heads in a brilliant colorful display. Rockets zoom upwards and burst into gold and green stars.
Our gondolier is quiet and we all look up at the spectacular Firework fiesta.
Briefly I see light in her eyes, the light I used to see… every time that she looked at me.
Her face is lit gold and green…
and, for a moment… there is hope.

June 1978: Richard is 20.
I am nervous. Today I have an awesome responsibility. I have Thora Hird in the back of my car. I might as well be on a daytrip with the Queen.
Thora is revered across the country and especially in these northern parts of Yorkshire.
She is not a Dame of the Empire yet -that honor is 14 years away - but she is a living legend, a character actress, famous for films like Olivier’s The Entertainer, and 1942’s Went the Day Well, countless Television comedies and Alan Bennett’s and John Osbourne’s leading lady.
We are acting in a family drama TV series called Flesh & Blood, set around -believe it or not - a cement works. Thora is playing my great grandmother and I, with actor Henry Knowles, have decided to take her out for a cream tea.
I drive through the narrow moor lanes nervously. My hands tightly grip the wheel. I listen to a non-stop monologue from Thora, a never-ending library of stories from her past.
“I was doing this play by Derec Longden… Lost For Words, that’s what it was called…about the last weeks of his mother's life, you know. There was this line in it. The son asks me:‘Do you want to be buried, mum, or cremated?’ …and I say ‘Oh, I don't know, love,’"
There is a pause timed to a nanosecond:
"‘Surprise me.’"

I am relieved when we finally arrive in the small Yorkshire village that has been recommended to us.
The tea is a success. The waitresses recognize her at once of course. We are served attentively by a young attractive girl. Thora catches me looking at her and gently teases.
"Steady there, sailor.”
Thora’s stream of consciousness continues.
“I visited Janette and …‘him‘…”
She pauses to puff on her cigarette.
“…24 times all in all. Los Angeles, you know…"
‘Him’ is Mel Torme who was married to her daughter, the actress Janette Scott.
“…yes…Los Angeles…Hollywood… very nice in many ways, perfect for a holiday, but there’s no corner shop, love.”

As we leave and walk towards the car, a matronly lady approaches with a determined look on her weather-beaten face.
“It is, isn’t it? It’s you isn’t it?”
Thora smiles broadly.
"I think so love, last time I looked.”
The woman is close to us now and we can see the perspiration running down her face.
“It is you then, Dora. Miss Bryan.…I have always loved your work.”
Henry and I hold our breath. Thora’s beatific smile is frozen on her bright red lipstick-covered lips. Dora Bryan is a fellow northern actress, ten years younger than Thora, and known for lighter comedic fayre than our redoubtable septuagenarian.
With a considerable inner effort Thora beams once more.
“No love it isn’t, but I’ll tell her you thought so.”

July 1991: Richard is 33.
I sit down suddenly.
"Wait… is this right?"
I am looking at the rough treacherous path ahead and the 800 foot drop to one side, two feet from its edge.
Oddvar looks at me and laughs.
“Hey RichARD… come on you fucking Englishman,” he cries in his thick Norwegian accent.
I look down and feel dizzy. I am halfway up a mountain in the middle of Norway and I have made an important new discovery.
Heights and I don’t get on. I am terrified.
“You know if this was back in the UK now, this whole area would be fenced off,” I say, and add a chuckle afterwards. Perhaps they will think I’m joking.
Oddvar strides over to me. He’s six foot tall, blonde and built like what you’d expect from a Norwegian ex-judo champion. He’s now an actor, addicted to US police dramas and bears a disturbing likeness to Rutger Hauer.
“Hey RichARD, you are a funny ass guy. Hey… stop fucking about, man. We’re going in! Think of the English.”

In fact we’re not going in; we’re going up…and up. Up a rough mountain path with a perilous drop on its side and a small sidestep from death and oblivion. We are in the Jutenheimen Nasjonal Park, Norway's greatest park. There are glaciers, mountains, lakes, and waterfalls, crowned by two towering peaks, Glittertind at 2,452m (8,044 ft.) and Galdhøpiggen at 2,469m (8,100 ft.), the highest peak in northern Europe. .

I am here to play Allmers in Ibsen’s Little Eyolf in the International Ibsen Festival in Oslo. I am with an off-shoot of the Norway’s National Theatre. They are remounting this production. The rest of the cast is Norwegian, however the play is being spoken in English; fortunate really because the only Norwegian words I know are snakker die Englesk? (Do you speak English? … and every Norwegian does, fluently).. And Jeg Elske Deg… (I love you…but in Norway it really means… I LOVE YOU, so if you say it to someone, you better mean it because you’re practically engaged.)
The director has decided to replace their Norwegian lead with an English actor. I captured the part after being recommended by Hugh Crutwell, my principal at RADA. I have waited two months and turned down other roles to be here. How often would a chance like this come along? I am playing Ibsen in Norway with Norwegians… A once in a lifetime experience.

Now, I am perched high up on this precipice because my Norwegian hosts have decided that the best way for their English actor to learn what Allmers’s journey was like in the mountains, - a journey that he takes the two weeks before Little Eyolf’s action begins, - is to take him… up into the mountains. The fact that their English actor has crippling vertigo has only made the journey much more fun and interesting.

I stagger to my feet and look at the path ahead.
“What do you mean…think of the English?’
“You English guys… in the war, the Blitz… man, those Nazi fuckers bombed the shit out of you , but you took it and kept going. So if one of our countrymen gets all fuckin’ coward or starts complaining over something small, you know…we say…think of the English.”
I breathe in deeply, put on my backpack and start up the perilous path, putting one nervous foot in front of the other.
“Oddvar, my friend, I’m English and that’s a stupid fucking saying!”

February 1990: Richard is 32.
I am imprisoned.
How did they find out?
Someone betrayed us.
I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am.
This is the world of celebrity. Friends are hard to find. People act in strange ways around celebrity: Attention seekers, hustlers, con-artists, bent accountants, fame fuckers; moths to the flame.
I am here, not only because of her.
To be honest, I wouldn’t choose to be here at all. I have to be in the city to cover for my business partner and I have nowhere else to go. In a week I am leaving for Scotland to take on Giovanni in Tis Pity She’s A Whore. Seven days and I would have been out of here.
But she offered sanctuary. I am fascinated by her. Right or wrong, here I am.
They are knocking on the door of her town cottage. Damn it! It is past 11 o’clock at night. They’re going to wake up the whole neighborhood. Already a couple of notes have been pushed through.
Come out. Talk to us. We know what’s going on.
She is away.
I have warned her to stay at a friend’s. Already my children’s mother has phoned to say they are knocking on her door as well.
I have to escape.
The cottage is in a mews. There is no getaway from the front door. I climb the stairs and open the bathroom window.
The banging on the front door starts up again. I climb out on to the ledge and pull myself around the edge of the house and onto the top of the adjoining wall. Balancing along its edge, I skip gingerly along its length to the garden wall that runs behind the cottage.
Peering down I assess the 15 foot drop to the alley below.
In the distance the sounds of the Paparazzi siege from the front of the cottage has grown louder.
I stiffen my sinews, summon up the blood……
and jump.

February 1986: Richard is 27.
I am sitting on stage in full drag make-up. My false eye-lashes flutter. I blink to check they won’t stick together. I rub my blood-red false finger nails. My feet are complaining. They are pinched together in woman’s high heels.
Behind me, the Torch Singer croons beautifully.
I am in darkness.
When the song finishes, the lights will come up and I will launch into a four page monologue and start the three and three quarter hour star vehicle that is the centre of Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy.
My nerves are racing. The fear is intense.
What am I doing here?
What would happen if I just walked away now; left the stage and out into the daylight?

I’m here because I had a phone-call.
“Would you be interested in understudying Anthony Sher?”
I am not long out of RADA. Sher has stunned audiences with his dynamic Richard lll. I have devoured his book The Year of the King. I have still a lot to learn as an actor. I think only for a second before replying.
“Of course…”
“Hold on,” says my agent quickly, “The casting agents want you to know that the part is a New York Jewish homosexual drag queen. It’s huge. Tony doesn’t play shows back to back, but has agreed to do the first 12 weeks, after that you would be doing the matinees.”
“Sounds intriguing. I’ll do it.”

When I put down the phone I can feel my heart racing.
I have no wish to go on for the matinees, but I am fascinated by the way Sher approaches his work; and to watch his process at close quarters is this young actor’s dream.
Soon I am in rehearsals inside a church in South London.
The part is massive.
There are three plays crammed into one evening. The first play is mainly monologues, including one in a backroom bar where Arnold has sex with another man in the dark.
I have no idea of the homosexual world that it is set in. I don’t even understand what the sex involves.

Understudy rehearsals begin and the company manager patiently answers my questions on the backroom bar scene in New York City. I listen to his replies and the lurid stories, and can hardly believe this bacchanalian world exists.
The company manager has just finished telling me about sling hammocks in a club in the New York docks, now he looks at me carefully.
“So, how do you want these rehearsals to go? The part is really yours to make your own. I‘m here to help.”
“Okay, in that case,…I would like it if you didn’t criticize me… I have a very thin skin at the moment and this is going to take all my confidence. Also, I would like to try out stuff and experiments of my own if you think they might be appropriate. Is that okay with you?”

The play opens to positive reviews. Tony’s Arnold Beckoff is well received. He is nervous of the publicity. He has not officially ‘come out‘, although it’s not really a secret. The production team is all gay. I am shy and reticent at this time. The scars of RADA still work on undermining my confidence. I also know I have to explore the feminine side of my personality and I am scared.
Will I turn out to be gay?
I have been hit upon many times. I am a good-looking young man. I was a beautiful teenager.
Every time it happens I am surprised. I am incredibly naive. My male admirers admonish me for leading them on, but it‘s never my intention.
The only consensual gay encounter I have experienced was early on; in my all-boy preparatory school. A group of us would masturbate together. We were ten years old. Around this time I had a crush on one of the boys for a term. I don’t remember feeling anything sexual about it. I just wanted him to like me… He was blond and had skin as smooth as Oriental alabaster. He was beautiful… and I liked to look at him.
Since then I have been determinedly straight. Women are a brave new world. I adore them. They are the magic in my life. I love their company… much more than men.
Like any gay man.

However, I love sex. Straight sex. I love the softness of women’s bodies. I love the smell of women, touching women, the energy of women. I am fascinated by their mood swings, like so many seasons; a cloud crossing the sun, the light and shade in the bottom of their eyes. I enjoy enveloping their female with my male. I devour, worship, penetrate and wonder. I see that they understand me, and do not deny me.

Being with women feeds my soul.

Our Assistant Stage Manager on Torch Song was at RADA with me. She has spread the rumor that I had affairs with most of the women there.
This is not true.
However I was friends with many of them and took a few out on platonic dates.
But I was/am in a relationship, and, for now, I will only flirt. My mother wishes I was gay.
May be this is the time to find out?

The first time I put on the make-up, squeeze into the dress, play with my long blonde hair, I am amazed at the beautiful woman staring back at me in the mirror. People enter the dressing-room to see the transformation. I am suddenly aware of a change in the atmosphere. As a woman, I have a sexual power that is palpable. I feel it radiating out of me.
Both men and women are turned on. My drag queen is so beautiful that the director orders a change in hair color to try and make her more drab.

Rehearsals continue. I bring in new ideas.
‘Arnold’ hates shrinks. I am watching Joan Rivers on television. She mentions an actress with disdain and spits on the floor.
It’s time to steal.
My baby daughter is teething. Most nights I take her downstairs and pace the living-room floor with her on my shoulder. To comfort her, I act out Arnold’s first monologue. She is always asleep by the end of the first page. One night I play her little ballet music box. When the lid is opened it plays a phrase of Swan-Lake and a ballet dancer twirls around.
Time to steal.

When the suggestion of a public understudy dress rehearsal is mooted, I am unenthusiastic. It has never been done before. 12 weeks have come and gone, but Tony is enjoying ‘Arnold’ and is happy to keep playing the matinees. I am not disappointed. I enjoy watching his process and learning. And anyway, I have just been told that I am to go on in a couple of months for Harvey Fierstein who is coming over to London to reprise the role he wrote and created. Why should I risk it now?
I try to dissuade others from the idea of the understudy performance, but it soon becomes apparent that the whole cast and production team are excited by its innovation.

And now the day is here.
Some of the cast members are standing in for certain acts and scenes. Tony Sher himself, and Miriam Karlin who plays the mother, are acting as ushers and showing people to their seats. The director, the producers, casting directors, family and friends are all in the audience. I am not ready. I don’t know if I can make the quick changes. I have never performed the part under lights. And I cannot stop shaking with fear.

The music stops. The lights come up. I swivel in the chair, my stocking legs elegant and poised; my feminine false-nailed hands flutter across my fake feminine breasts; my false eyelashes bat in the lights; I smile lovingly through my glossy rouged lips at the darkened audience and tilt my copper feminine head.
I pause before my first line.
Deep breath.
“Gorgeous huh?”

April 1982: Richard is 24.
She screams again.
How is't with me, when every noise appals me?
I hold her hand and offer what encouragement I can.
I now understand why fathers were never allowed to be at the birth of their children.
This is a female world. A primeval world.
I don’t feel ready.
This is a grown-up world.
Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
Are my comforting platitudes really helping? And where are the doctors and nurses? I thought there would be a whole team of them. Only a large down-to-Earth West Indian mid-wife is in attendance.
We are in a small hospital room. We have been here all night.
Sleep no more.
She has been in labor for eight hours.
Better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy.

Suddenly the baby is coming. Our midwife shouts encouragement.
“I can see baby’s head. Push some more for me sweetheart.”
I don’t want to look. I stay at the top of the bed and concentrate on her face.
She is sweating, exhausted, but summoning her remaining strength.
O, full of scorpions is my mind…
Her hand grips mine tightly. It hurts. I don’t care. I want her free of pain.
Thou canst not say I did it: never shake
Thy gory locks at me.
I want this over. She is in so much pain.
If thou couldst, doctor, cast
The water of my land, find her disease,
And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
I would applaud thee to the very echo.

She screams.
“That’s it…baby’s coming…”
She is panting short breaths.
She screams again.

“That’s it…here …that’s it. Baby’s here.”
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow…

A slap on bare skin.
And then the baby cries.
I look down to see the midwife holding the wet being in her hands.
Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer's cloud,
Without our special wonder?

We laugh. We cry. It is Christmas in April.
The midwife smiles broadly.
“Well done sweetheart… you have a boy.”

I walk into RADA exhausted.
I have not slept.
It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood:
Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;

I am playing Macbeth in the GBS studio. The same studio where I see Kenneth Branagh give his first Hamlet. Now it’s my turn.
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

It is my first big Shakespeare role and I am addicted.
I place the champagne on the table and face my classmates.
Turn hellhound, turn.
“I am a father. I have a son of woman-born. His name is Charley.”

June 2002: Richard is 44.
I have been avoiding her.
It’s ridiculous. She is too young. Too beautiful. Too innocent.
She is with someone else.
And yet…
My attraction to her is overwhelming.
Life has a cruel sense of humor.
This is not the time.

Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing is a welcome tonic.
I enjoy his wit; his confidence.
I appreciate him. I appreciate everything here in the mountains.
Life gives you what you need. You have to ask for it.
I can’t remember being this sad before.
I can’t remember being this scared.
But finally… the drowning man sees the surface.
He swims upwards.

She appears out of nowhere.
Now she’s sitting down beside me.
Dark, beautiful, and pure.
We talk.
And talk…
Easy, free, relaxed.
A recognition.
Light in our eyes.
Hot night. Warm glow.
We are alone, surrounded by people.
A shortness of breath.
It is our first conversation.

She has left him and I know.
I know.
This is not the time…

Not yet.

April 2005: Richard is 47.
Not once throughout the twenty minute performance has President Bush fidgeted or looked bored. He and Laura sit smiling, enthralled. The rest of the audience have followed their example. Even Tom Wolfe, in his white suit, seems interested.

After the last freeze, we break downstage to take our bows. Tony brushes his arm past Lisa’s head and her platinum blonde wig flies across the stage.
Lisa screams and I burst out laughing.
The president and the rest of the audience roar their approval.

Then a slight hiatus. We had been told that the President might join us and say a few words… or he might not.
“What if he doesn’t,” Lisa had said worriedly, “how do we get off?”
They are now standing.
And then, with a little nudge from Laura, the President comes up on stage and shakes our hands.
As he grips mine, his eyes - small, bright and alert - meet mine.
“Pleased to meet ya. Thank you for coming.”

His body language fascinates me. With the men he pulls himself up to his full height, 5ft 10in, and comes into the space usually reserved for intimate friends and relations. Then a firm grip of the hand, and eyes level, as he meets the object of his attention.
With the women it is the same approach, but he leans forward when invading their inner private space.
When he comes to Lisa, clad in skin-tight pleather, the eyes twinkle and he leans in even closer.
“And it is especially nice to meet you. Thank you very very very much for coming.”

Lisa laughs.
“I liked him,” she says later. “It’s very confusing."

Driving through the front gate of the White House

The President turns to the audience. He thanks us for coming to entertain them that night. Then he thanks the company coming to share the words of Shakespeare with them all.
He mis-pronounces Aquila as Akeyla much to our delight. He says that our company had visited 36 states, 64 cities over that last year bringing Shakespeare to the remotest parts of the country. Even Iowa.
The audience laughs, prompted by a chuckle from George.
Iowa and The White House, a voice inside me says. No Shakespeare has been performed inside this building since the Kennedys.
The President ends his little speech. Laura comes up and shakes our hands and George beckons the White House photographer forward.
We gather around.
I stand next to Laura.
The President places himself between our two pleather-clad actresses.
After one more burst of applause we run back to the Green Room. Our marine minder appears, congratulates us and starts to lead us through the cross-hallway.
Suddenly he stiffens and steps backwards, forcing us to a stop inside the doorway. Through the half opened door I see the President and his wife walk past. They are still smiling.

“That was fun, wasn’t it?” Laura says hanging on her husband’s arm. The intonations in her voice make it sound as if George had not altogether been looking forward to our visit. George’s smile broadens.
“It sure was.”

Later that night we raise our glasses in a toast. We have entertained the most powerful man in the world. He has enjoyed himself and we have made sure that a few more millions will go out of the Pentagon and into the Arts.
“Let’s drink to Will,” I cry.
“To William Shakespeare!” We lift our glasses high.
As we drink, someone cries:
“Clever cunt!”

May 1979: Richard is 21.
His presence is electric, immense.
I have been in rooms with Film Stars, Presidents, Princes, Kings and Queens, and he eclipses them all. I have pestered older actors to tell me about him throughout my career. I want to learn what it was like at the Old Vic. What happened in the theatre, on stage off stage… and what did he do? How did he do it? Was he that good?

And now he is in front of me.
Richard Burton has a force field around him that emanates from deep in the ground. It probably comes from some dark ghost-laden coal mine in Wales, given to him by his Celtic ancestors, the old Welsh princes and kings: Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, Morgan Mwynfawr, Madog, and Llywelyn the Great.
For he is like a King. He radiates power. It hums in the air and makes the hairs on my skin rise.

Film diminishes him. That much is obvious. This is an energy that can only be appreciated in his presence.
“He was a lazy bastard,” an older actor had told me two years earlier. “The rest of us in the company would wonder what all the fuss was about. He would have drinking competitions with John Neville and others. Sometimes they would see how drunk they could be and still do the part.”
“Then why…?” I am confused. “Wasn’t he supposed to be the next great actor? Olivier’s heir? Why did they think he was so good?”
“Because… yes, he was lazy, and yes, he would drink; many times would be drunk. But then there would be a time in the play… I would think how wasteful he was with his talent. And then suddenly…he would turn it on; the magic. His voice would soar up into every pillar, every seat of that theatre and the audience were… transfixed, lifted out of their seats. They were… transported. Then I knew…”

We are doing a film called Absolution. I am one of the boys in his classroom. Burton is playing a Catholic Priest. Billy Connelly is also in the cast. Burton likes Billy, but Billy drinks, so he keeps him at arms length. Burton is not drinking at this time. But he smokes at least 60 cigarettes a day.

Now he is talking to me.
I blush. His voice, deep, rich and powerful, runs through me like hot fudge.
“Is that your name?”
I look down to where he’s pointing.
I have written Richard Williams on my exercise book.
“It’s not. I just gave my character a name.”
“I had a friend at school called Richard Williams. I wonder where he is now?”
And then he moves on.

Later, I drive through the night down to Cornwall. I am also filming for the BBC an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. I arrive at the hotel at 2am having nearly driven into the sea. It is dark here in Cornwall. I fall into a huge bed with fresh linen sheets.
The next morning I am taken by one of the period cars out to the location. To Manderly.
I am excited. We are bringing Rebecca to life. Even the book’s blood red rhododendrons are in full bloom. I am playing Robert, the young footman. Harriet Walter is playing Clarice, the maid. It is her first television role.
Jeremy Brett has been brought over from America to play Maxim de Winter. Anna Massey is playing Mrs. Danvers. Anna and Jeremy were married and have a son together. They are friendly and fond of one another. I am used as a go-between. Through me, they bounce around witticisms and gentle digs between each other.
Joanna David, a relative unknown, is playing the Girl. Another actress had been playing the role, but she disappeared after the read-through. Never again will I think a film or TV part is mine; not until after the end of shooting.
We are filming the exteriors. In Jeremy’s first scene of the day, his arrival at Manderly, he does an homage to Olivier’s Maxim, filmed in the 1940s by Hitchcock; a subtle impersonation with Olivier’s intonations. Our adaptation, the first since Hitchcock’s can remain faithful to the book, unlike the film.

I have planned to drive back to the Absolution film set immediately after the day’s shooting. I share the journey back to the hotel with Jeremy and Joanna and fall asleep between them in the car. Jeremy insists I sleep at the hotel and persuades the BBC to pay for another night.
I awake at midnight and drive in my green Volkswagen Beetle back to Shropshire through the night.

The next day on the set, Burton is edgy. He disappears for two hours with the director Anthony Page. He is unhappy with the script.
It is now late afternoon.

We are filming in the classroom. The camera is filming through the window of the classroom door. Burton knows the time instinctively.
“It’s vodka time,” he mutters.
It is 5 o’clock.

There are problems with the shot setup.
We have done two rehearsals and the director is discussing lighting on the other side of the door.
In his classroom, sitting at our desks, we are silent. Burton’s agitation is palpable.
An assistant comes into the room.
“Mr Burton, Anthony would like to do another rehearsal.”
Burton glowers at him.
“We’ll go for a take.”
The assistant director, flustered, looks back through the door.
“I’m sorry, Mr Burton, but Anthony just needs…”
“ WE”LL GO FOR A TAKE!!!”
Burton’s voice roars like a lion.
Its sound penetrates me, turns my stomach, frightens me, thrills me, moves me… my senses are suddenly alive. Every fiber of my being is on edge as the shockwaves continue resonating around the studio. The air is charged with a crackling electricity. My breathing momentarily stops. Here is Prince Hal. Here is Hamlet. Here is Coriolanus, Iago, Othello, Jimmy Porter and King Arthur. Here, in this moment, is the heir apparent.
The assistant disappears, blown out of the room by the visceral power of the Welsh King.

Then silence.
Everyone still, not daring to breathe.
Burton turns and looks at our scared upturned faces.
“Otherwise we’ll bloody well never get home,” he says… and winks.

July 1995: Richard is 37.
She hits me hard across the face. Her nails rake my cheek.
I had seen it coming, but I don’t move.
I have always been uncomfortable with her temper.
She knows it affects our relationship. She has tried to control it.
Now I need to see how much.

We are in the theatre at Greenwich.
It is Sunday morning. Our two-handed touring show is always performed on a Sunday.
A two hour confection of Shakespeare, and sixteenth and seventeen century verse. On Love, Marriage and Break-up. Just the two of us.
We call it Kiss & Tell. It is my personal joke with the paparazzi.
We have learned the whole damned thing. We have lights. We have costumes. We sing. We have music. We fill the stage with haze.
Most other actors on a Sunday evening would use a couple of lecterns and have a few flower-filled vases.

Since Greenwich is so close to London, I agree to the interview on BBC Radio. I have always refused to be photographed or interviewed with her. But Angela Rippon has an afternoon show on national radio. Even Shakespeare had to put bums on seats. It seems safe enough.
Towards the end of the interview, which has gone well, Angela smiles and turns all her attention towards me. I instinctively know that a dangerous animal has entered the studio.
“So finally Richard, what is your reaction to all the press chatter on your relationship? What do you say to those people who comment on your age difference and call you toy-boy?”
Oh dear.
Why am I not surprised? Angela has gone back to her populist journalist roots.
“Well Angela,..“ I pause dramatically. Angela sees the look in my eye and is worried. We are on live radio. I smile wickedly.
“Well Angela…the toys I had as a boy were clockwork. I am much harder to wind up.”

The first job I have on this Sunday morning is to get our set in - chairs, backcloth, table and floorcloth. Then I work on the lights while she organizes our costumes. And now there is a delay.
The problem? I have suggested that we could adapt the show to the space. Perhaps take the whole set back ten feet and use the whole stage.

Immediately she is on the defensive. I try to explain the reasons for my idea. She is not listening.
She doesn’t want to listen and I hate not being heard.
Inevitable outcome: She explodes.
And now come the insults; personal, outrageous and diabolical.
I have heard them all before. I have left her five times because of them.
Now we are married. She talks about our ‘secret’ marriage to a national paper within the first two weeks. I have always asked her not to talk about me or our relationship. I feel betrayed. We recover and are now happy… enough.
Until… her son flirts with death and the only thing to do is to welcome him into our small cottage. He is three years younger than me; Hamlet to my Claudius. I am the first man of hers that he actually likes.
I try hard to help him. I listen. I keep him company at the pubs. I ferry him home. I attempt to give them space and time together. But the strain is starting to tell.
The temper has been absent. The insults silent.
This is their first appearance since our small secret wedding.
And both are back with a vengeance.

Fists flying, she comes for me. I grab her arms and push her to the floor. She kicks furiously, insults spitting into my face. I sit on her and pin her arms to the ground.
Like a trapped tiger, she tries to bite me. Her body bucks against me. Her startling beautiful eyes flash angrily. Gradually her struggles subside.
And then she bucks again and I am thrown to the floor. In a flash she is gone. I follow her through the wings and out the stage door.

I have revised my feelings on women. I am still fascinated by them, but I am only beginning to realize how lucky I have been. All these years I have been playing with nitroglycerin and somehow have escaped being torn apart. Sure, sex is beautiful, but these creatures can rip a man’s soul to shreds.

She is now screaming at me in the street. I look around to see if anyone is listening.
I have a painful shyness and reticence. I love acting because it gives me a chance to escape behind different masks; to speak someone else’s words. I am now with someone who is so well known that when we walk out of the door we are in a public world. Any trip - to the shops, a restaurant, the cinema - is a journey full of tension and terror for me.

I look back to her. She is pulling at her finger. In a flash she rips off her wedding ring and flings it into the air. I watch it sail high into the bright Sunday morning. Our marriage disappears over a brick wall and lands somewhere in a Greenwich private car park. The ring is never found. At least, not by us.

May 1997: Richard is 39.
I am in midair. My feet have left the ground and I am suspended in the darkness. I wish I could suspend my disbelief and keep hanging there. This is not supposed to be happening.
Indeed, it is most inconvenient.
I am in the middle of the first public performance of Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance.
My character Lord Illingworth is suave, charming, a mad bad gentleman and dangerous to know. Everything he does is with style, sophistication and a rakish panache. In all my character study, nothing has suggested that he would be enhanced by falling off the stage
No, you poor fool, and it had been going so well before you fucked it up.

I am in a packed house for the first performance. I have been given a gift of a part by Paul, the director, and I have worked hard on it. Wilde demands complete mastery over language and a lightness of touch. A week under my mother’s strict directorial eye and ear for catching anything lower in class than a baron or earl, has prepared me well. I have followed it up with a daily regime of vowel and consonant practice, as well as deep breathing exercises, which will enable me to easily fill the large spaces of Leicester’s Haymarket Theatre.
Character study, always my favorite part of rehearsals, has been tremendous fun and totally engrossing. I have devoured books on the period, enthusiastically studied the politics, the gossip, the fashion of the late 1800s. I have pored over Wilde’s personal life.
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.

I know Lord Illingworth is a follow-on from Lord Henry Wotton in Wilde’s only novel A Picture of Dorian Gray. His world view espouses a new kind of hedonism. He suggests that the only thing worth pursuing in life is beauty and the fulfillment of the senses.
I have been enthusiastic in exploring this philosophy; all in the name of character study. Of course.
Somewhat too enthusiastically on occasions.

A man of about 45 and a bachelor, he is witty and clever and a practiced flirt, who knows how to make himself agreeable to women. He is the typical Wildean dandy.
My first entrance is brilliant and camp. I appear in the garden in a green spotlight. I have grown a beard and I have grayed my temples. I wear a beautiful white summer suit, a panama hat, a lily corsage. I carry a silver top cane and look out at the audience through genuine Victorian sunglasses.
Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.

Wilde’s wit, the spot-on direction, the magnificent costumes, the succulent music, have transported the audience, who have been roaring their approval through out this performance.
Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

Now we move on to Act lV.
I am left alone on stage after an unsuccessful attempt to seduce my son’s fiancé. The audience are equally appalled and charmed by my character.
There is a scene change taking place behind me as the music plays.
I sit casually in a chair. I produce my silver cigarette case from my jacket‘s inner pocket, and holding it carefully in my right hand, I flick it open with my thumb and admire myself in its reflection. I take a cigarette and tap it on the side of the case. I calmly place the cigarette in my mouth and, snapping the case shut, I return it to my inner pocket.
In the other hand I take out a box of matches, flick open the box, take a match between my left thumb and index finger, cross my legs and nonchalantly strike the match against the sole of my boots.
How to strike the match there has taken three weeks of preparation.

A “striking surface” is made of sand, powdered glass, and a chemical called “red phosphorus”. The head of a safety match is made of sulfur, glass powder, and an oxidizing agent. An oxidizing agent is necessary to keep a flame lit. Oxygen is a common oxidizing agent.
When a match is struck on the striking surface of its box, the friction caused by the glass powder rubbing together produces enough heat to turn a very small amount of the red phosphorus into white phosphorus, which catches fire in air. This small amount of heat is enough to start a chemical reaction that uses the oxidizing agent to produce oxygen gas. The heat and oxygen gas then cause the sulfur to burst into flame, which then causes the wood of the match to catch on fire.

Fire regulations have forced me to use safety matches which has meant gluing a cut-out striking surface - taken from a matchbox - on the sole of my shoe. However, in the dress rehearsals a draft from the auditorium has blown out my attempts to keep it alight.
And now tonight…
I hold my breath tonight as the flame springs to life. The full house, as I had hoped, makes the difference and the flame takes hold. As if daring it to go out, I hold the match a second later than necessary before bringing it to the end of my cigarette.. I can feel the audience on tender-hooks. They are intrigued by the ‘business’ and the possibility of prop malfunction.
I shake out the flame and throw the match into the conveniently placed ashtray on the table next to me.
I rise up from the chair and start to walk slowly down stage, pulling on my cigarette and blowing the smoke into the air above my head. The space I leave enables a huge golden interior ceiling piece to be slowly and elegantly flown in behind me.
The music swells dramatically.
Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

And then…unbelievably… I am in mid air.
I have walked not only downstage but right off the edge of the stage. I hear 800 people collectively gasp.

Remarkably, I land on my feet.
I breathe an inward sigh of relief. I do not fall or stagger. I am standing facing the front row of the startled audience.
There is no sound. Nothing.
The drop has been five feet from the stage. But I do not look back . I keep upright, concentrated on my journey ahead.
I walk softly, slowly and gracefully.
I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

The audience watches in silence.
I step carefully over handbags, coats and feet until I reach the stairs at the side of the stage.
Still no sound. This is more than I deserve. I am incredibly lucky.
I climb the stairs and walk on stage once more.
I have my back to them now.

My body wants to keep walking. To reach the dressing-room, to calm my racing nerves, to cool my sweating face.
And then I hear the voice in my head.
You know, if you do that, you’re going to look more of a cunt than you do now.
And I know instinctively that he is right.

I turn and face the audience.

And He dares them.
He dares them to make a noise.
He dares them to laugh.
He calmly takes them all in.
They look back at him suspended and transfixed.
And when He is sure… absolutely sure… that he has them…
He smiles.
Now you can laugh at me, with me, because you know and I know that that was a hell of a fuck-up!

The laughter erupts from all 800 and the applause continues long after I have left the stage.

Later I apologize to Paul for nearly ruining his show. The after-show party is buzzing excitedly, and although the production is a smash hit, the talk is all about how ‘that’ actor sauntered off the stage and made it look as if it was the most natural thing in the world. How cool. How calm. How sophisticated.
Paul smiles and shrugs.
“Only you dear, could do that… would do that…. Please… don’t do it again.”

It is a turning point. I know it.
Why?
Because the feet that landed in the first row, the body that sauntered beneath the edge of the stage; the swagger, the calmness, the self assurance…. That voice in my head… It wasn’t me. It wasn’t even my instinct.
No, the steady feet, the upright body, the calm nerves, the mordant voice, was the sardonic, hedonistic and faintly amused diplomat and ambassador to Vienna: the witty, clever and amoral…
Lord Henry Illingworth.

July 2007. Richard is 49.
She stands in front of me.
Her face is shining, glowing with happiness.

I have spent five years attempting to dissuade her from this moment.
I tell her that people change a great deal in their twenties.
I tell her she has to feel free to explore.
I tell her that I am flawed and imperfect.
I tell her that my life is riddled with a tempestuous past of broken relationships.
I tell her that she could find someone better, younger and more able.
I tell her that I’m an actor and for the last 15 years have not stayed in one place for longer than three years.
I tell her I have no material wealth to offer of any kind.

She listens.
She always listens.
And then she smiles, and looks into my eyes, the way a mother looks at a confused child.
“Don’t be silly.” she says simply.
She is now thirty. She is absolutely sure. She has always been sure.
There had never been a doubt in her mind from the night we talked; that night in the mountains of West Virginia.
I take her hand. She is beautiful. She is dressed simply in white with a red flower in her dark hair. It is a perfect summer’s day.
The lake is still. A gentle summer breeze ripples her dress.
We walk hand in hand and enter the human circle made by friends and family.
Her sisters and best friend stand behind her.
Her parents and my daughter are behind me.
We pause to look around the circle, into the faces of our guests.
And then we turn and look into each others eyes.

She stands in front of me.
Her face is shining, glowing with happiness.
And our wedding begins.

February 1978: Richard is 19.
“Shit. My stomach don’t feel right. There’ll be trouble tonight.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean there’ll be trouble. Best you keep a low profile.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s simple. Every time I get this feelin‘, somethin’ always kicks off. It’s gonna ‘appen. So just do what I say and keep out the fuckin’ way.”

We are on our way to our club in the Kings Road. J. Arthur’s is a trendy hangout. (J. Arthur Rank - Wank. Geddit?) I like the place because you can dance in one section and eat in another.
Jamie and I are young men on the razzle. We are working on a series called Bunch of Fives. I have been working constantly this year. This is my fourth TV series in 14 months. I returned to London homeless. I had just finished filming The Doombolt Chase in Bristol. Jamie and his family have taken me in and I am a guest in their Dulwich home. This is our second series together. I am grateful but apprehensive. Jamie’s father, Fred, is a London underworld legend. On the board of the infamous South London Firm, he is a top drawer bank robber and ex-business associate of the notorious London gangsters, The Kray twins. He has just returned home after serving ten years in a Leicester prison.

I am taken into the twilight world of crime as an honorary member of the ‘Firm’. I am a friend of Jamie’s and under Fred’s protection, so everything is ‘sweet as a nut; smart as a carrot.’
Fred’s hospitality is exceptional. I become a part of the family, sharing their meals and sleeping in their home. He will not listen to my offers to pay him money for rent.
“An insult, Richard. You’re a guest. Don’t insult me.”
Fred’s bullish physical presence exudes power and high danger. I never offer again.
I tell Jamie that I will pay him back another way. I will be Jamie’s driver. If he wants to go anywhere I will take him and I won’t let him pay a penny for fuel.
Jamie cannot stop laughing.
‘I cannot wait to see the Firm’s faces.”
My car is a bright red Hillman Hunter. It’s a cumbersome vehicle, but it’s comfortable and a big improvement on my 1964 Ford Anglia. The Hillman Hunter glides easily along at 90 mph; the seats are white and the ride is smooth and quiet.
The Hillman Hunter also happens to be the choice of car for the plain clothes division of the London Metropolitan Police.

It has been an interesting few weeks. Jamie and I go to the club most nights. We walk in at 9pm and are gone around 2am. We catch up on sleep at the weekend. On Sundays we sleep nearly all day.
I am taken into a late night world of Speakeasies, gangsters, and shady late night deals. There are beautiful women everywhere, attracted by the animal power of these London gangsters. There is also charity work for the ‘kids’. Jamie and I are recruited straight away. Our TV fame is a boost to the Firm’s image on the kid’s hospital wards.

“Turn right ‘ere.”
“Why?” I ask bemused.
Jamie glances behind us through the Hunter‘s backseat window.
“Just do it.”
I am nervous now. I swing the car right.
“Take the next left and then the second right. Do it quickly and turn off the lights…Now!”
I follow his instructions. We turn into a mews. I flick off the lights. We swerve into another alleyway.
“Stop ‘ere.”
“What’s going on, Jamie?”
“Wait a minute… geddown.”
Jamie ducks and pushes my head down beneath the windscreen. Minutes later he rises and cautiously peers out of the window.
“All clear.”
I look at him in the glow of the streetlamp. He is twitching, like a deer sniffing an oncoming forest fire.
“All clear.”
“Jamie. What was it?”
“Police. It ‘appens. I always know where they are and they know me. We play this game a lot, I can just sense when they’re around. They must be pissin ‘emselves that I’m riding in your fuckin’ car.”

We continue our journey to the club. Now Jamie’s stomach contractions have worsened.
“Okay Rich, I’m not fuckin’ about now. You have to do as I say. Probably best not to come in at all, come to think of it.”
“Jamie, if there’s going to be trouble, then I’m going to back you up.”
Jamie laughs.
“Rich, you’re with the big boys now.”
However, he reluctantly allows me to accompany him inside. We are met at the door by other members of the Firm. They too have had the instinctive ‘hit’ that ’something bad’ is brewing.

Sure enough, half an hour later, five members from the East London ‘Manor’ walk into the club looking for trouble.
There is a standoff. The doors are closed and I am pushed into a backroom. I hear voices raised and then silence. Finally Jamie appears and he’s smiling.
“Wankers. See, I told ya. My tummy’s never wrong. Apparently they felt one of their lot had been insulted. They wanted a ruck. We persuaded ‘em otherwise. Fuckin’ storm in a teacup. Everything is sweet now.”
“You sure, because I don’t want to be left out. I’m your friend, Jamie. I’m not going to hide if there’s trouble.
“Rich I appreciate it, mate, but behave; it’s not yer business, alright?”
He puts his arm around my shoulder and leads me out into the club.
“Oh there was one thing,” he says whispering in my ear. “One of the bastards heard about what I’m travelin’ around in these days. The little ponce doesn’t believe it. Do yer mind showin’ the poxy wanker your fuckin’ car?”

April 1996: Richard is 38.
April in Paris .
We are going because we can. Because we have never been. Because that’s what lovers do.
Because we know it will be a perfect ending to our imperfect relationship.
Our affair is passionate, caring and mutually beneficial. Our physical attraction to each other is a magical alchemy. But we know it’s not the right time, probably will never be… the right time. The time is right to say goodbye.
But first we want Paris.

We want to say in a future time: ‘We’ll always have Paris.’
We are jet-lagged from the flight back from Canada.
Weary, we wait in the airport lounge for our flight to be called.

“Would Richard Willis please come to the information desk.”
We look at each other. We fear the worst. A death. A last minute audition. The Press.

We walk over to the information desk and are directed to a small room.
Two nervous flight attendants greet us.
“Are you Richard Willis?”
“I am.”
“I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”
I hold my breath.

One of them opens a door and my luggage is wheeled in on an airport luggage trolley. The case is open, ripped and in two pieces . My destroyed clothing spills over its edges. The contents are completely ruined.

“We had an accident. Your case was on the way to the aircraft. Unfortunately it fell off the cart. The driver stopped and tried to rescue it but… um… as you can see, he was too late. A British Airways jet bound for Singapore ran right over it.”

I stare at the case and the remains of my clothing.
She starts laughing. I join her. We are out of control. The last seven months are forgotten. The future is immaterial. This is the important moment. We will always have this…
… and we will always have Paris.

September 11th 2001.

I walk over to the window.
I look down to the street far below.
It is a beautiful Fall day.
The light is dazzling.
The sky is heavenly blue.
Thousands of people are walking on the sidewalks of New York.
Thousands and thousands.
Sirens wailing. Many sirens.
Fighter Jets screaming across the sky..
No signal on my cell phone.
Nothing.
I walk away from the window.
I open a door of the administration offices.
Deserted.
A small TV is playing, the picture blurred and fuzzy.
I make out the side of a tall building on the screen.
And then the fireball.

I walk into the theatre.
I see the abandoned reception buffet.
I pick up a sandwich and I pour myself a coffee.
I sit on the floor and sip my coffee and eat my sandwich.

I go back to rehearsals.
“I think we have to leave,” I say.

It is a beautiful Fall day.
The light is dazzling.
The sky is heavenly blue.
Thousands of people are walking on the sidewalks of New York.
We walk out into the light to join them
And into a dark day.

September 1995: Richard is 37.
Our opening night is tomorrow.
It is wonderful to be back in the West End again.
I love acting. One day you’re out of work, the next you’re traveling to Greece and a short tour of the provinces, before coming in to play the most beautiful old theatre in London: The Theatre Royal on the Haymarket.
I am directed by Peter Hall. I am acting with Alan Bates, Gemma Jones and Victoria Hamilton.
I am homeless. I am single. Life may be unstable elsewhere, but the work is my constant rock.
Yes, I am grateful for this part in Ibsen‘s (again) The Master Builder.

The phone rings in the dressing-room.
I pick it up.
The voice asks me if I have anything to say.
They know the marriage is broken.
They know why.
They know about my new life, my other relationships
Damn it, they know everything. Of course.
I thank the man for calling, tell him I understand he has a job to do, but I won’t be making any comment on my personal life.

I have worked for the media. My part-time job as a transcriber for an arm of the Press Association has given me an insight into how the media works.
They can smell a story out. Like Jamie could smell out a police car or trouble. They know who is genuine and who is fake. There is a code of honor there. One just has to be consistent.

The next day I receive a call from our company manager.
“The Press are outside the stage door and they want to talk to you. Just thought I should warn you.”
I go in early, stopping to buy first night cards and presents.
I walk down the Haymarket and stride through the front of the theatre. I nod briefly to the startled box office staff. I run through the auditorium, jump up on the stage and make my way through the wings.

Now I’m signing in at the stage door.
“So, they all want to speak to you, you know?”
“Press?” I ask.
“Daily Mail, the Sun, Daily Mirror… You want to talk to ‘em?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of ‘em. You just concentrate on tonight. Big night, eh?”

Alan walks through the stage door. He turns to me bemused. His eyes twinkle mischievously, but he asks no questions.
I knock on Victoria’s’ door. She stands in her dressing-room surrounded by flowers.
“How did they find out?”
“They just do. They know most things. I think it may be it would best if you went on your own tonight.”
I had agreed to escort her to our first night party, a glamorous affair in a swanky London hotel. She is young, up and coming and she certainly doesn’t need this on her debut night in the West End.
She is also brave and formidable. We made an agreement, she says, and if I was up for it, then so was she.
“They’ll be there.”
“So what? You and I are going to our first night party together. Let them write what they want.”

Later that night, and I am putting on my costume.
The phone rings.
It is her. I haven’t heard from her in weeks. They are at her door. They are demanding a story from her, offering money. What should she do?
“Don’t speak to them. Just say no. That’s all you have to do. They are not going to write anything if we don’t speak to them.” I’m not sure that what I’m saying is true, but I have to reassure her.
She agrees and I hear the fear in her voice. She is not used to the madness of the Press Pack in full cry.
This is your quarter of an hour call, quarter of an hour, please, ladies and gentlemen.

The phone rings again.
“They phoned me, you bastard. They have offered me £30,000. They say you‘re speaking to them.”
“They’re lying.”
This is her world; the tabloid world. She is comfortable running with the Press Pack.
“I don’t believe you. I‘m going to talk to them and take their bloody money.”
“ I swear on my children’s lives, I am not and will not speak to them, They have offered her money too. We have to just say no.”
“May be we should all three of us get together and take their money. Tell the story. Tomorrow it will be forgotten. At least we’ll gain something from all this bloody mess.”
“ I cannot stop you, but I am not going to say anything. If we don’t say anything to them, they’ll leave us alone.”
“You won’t speak to them?”
“Never.”
“Even if they offered you money? You must need the money?”
“Not even for ready money, I swear to you.”
She is not convinced. I can hear it in the coldness of her voice.
She is hurt. Her marriage is breaking up in public.
“You’ve humiliated me,” she cries and the phone is dead.

I am onstage. All the London critics are there and the theatre is buzzing to the strange atmosphere that a first night engenders. People reserving judgment; anxious friends and family.
I am in the back room, where my young architect works. I am waiting for my cue to go through to the Master Builder when I notice it. My jacket. It is hanging on a peg next to the door. I am supposed to pick it up and put it on before entering to play my scene with Alan. But this jacket is my jacket, not the costume. Stupid. It is the same beige color. The same cut. I left it out hanging over a chair in my dressing-room. No one would know the difference…
except my jacket has bright red buttons.
I play the scene in shirtsleeves.

I am back in my dressing-room. The play is over.
My agent and his wife are there examining my first night cards.
“So we had a phone call…”
“Oh yes?” I am sitting at the table, removing make-up.
“The Sunday Mirror… they say they will pay for your story.”
I put down the Kleenex and face him.
“And what did you say?”
My agent takes a sip from the wine I have poured him.
His wife holds out her glass.
“Do you need to talk about it now? It’s your first night. Let’s…”
“How much?”
There is an uneasy silence.
“I negotiated a good price for you.”
“You negotiated?”
My agent is silent.
“You negotiated? Did you not think to ask me? You know how I feel about them and you still…negotiated?”
“You may never get an offer like this again…”
‘How much?”
“They started low… I got them up to £25,000.” I rise from the chair and look at him.
“You’re my agent… my personal manager. Personal. You know… you must know I have never spoken to them, will never speak to them…you of all people understand how I feel about my personal life. How… why did you negotiate?”
His wife releases a loud cry, puts down her glass, and runs sobbing from the room.

Victoria has been entertaining her family in her dressing-room. She never rushes anything.
She is elated by her first night. I am feeling anger, but I am resolute.
The limo picks us up at the stage door. There is no sign of the Press.
We make our entrance into the party an hour late. We stride into the ballroom. Alan and Gemma wave over to us in relief. The producer looks nervous. His wife stares at me coldly and looks away. She is a friend of my estranged wife.
A photographer starts taking pictures of Alan, Gemma and Vicky. I grab a drink, and watch them pose for the camera.
“Now could we…do you think… have a picture of Victoria and Richard together?”
The producer is waving his arms and saying no.
But she is smiling.
She reaches out her hand.
I put down my glass and stride over to the centre of the ballroom.
“Could you put your arm around her, Richard?”
I stare hard at the photographer and then look down at Vicky. Her eyes are shining mischievously.
“My pleasure,” I say…
We are laughing as we throw our arms around each other… …snap!… and happy, smiling and unconcerned, we are captured in time.

February 1978: Richard is 20.
We have been improvising for two weeks now. Our set of Class Enemy need a constant supply of chairs and desks, because the character of Iron goes berserk at the end of the play and smashes them to pieces. The Bristol Old Vic main company walk past our rehearsal room every day. They have heard the shouting and obscenities. They see the crude sketches on the blackboard. They are intrigued.
He has cut his Byronic long dark hair.
He is now a skinhead.
When he’s not in character, his public school voice is soft and reserved. He and I are the only Public school boys there. The rest are the real thing, brought in from Anna Scher’s school. A London school that gives London cockney youngsters a way to let off steam, takes them off the streets and lets them try acting. They are raw, talented and the next wave includes Ray Winstone, Phil Daniels, Charlotte Coleman and Susan Tully.
Our Scher actors are bemused by him. They gently ‘take the piss’, but after two weeks of improvisation, he has earned their respect. His characterization of Iron is spot on. He is the working class warrior and hard as nails; a spitting, furious young cockney teenager. They all know an Iron in their ‘manor’.

We are performing now and the play is a huge hit. You can smell it…as Olivier said ’Like Brighton and oysters and things like that.’ Everyone wants to know us.
I have just split up with my lover. She is furious that I am working in her hometown of Bristol and at the Old Vic. Our affair began in Redditch on another play. Bristol is where she lives with her boyfriend and the Old Vic is her place of worship.
An actress from the main company decides to have an affair with me. I am shocked because she’s married. She tells me she has affairs all the time and he knows. She writes me poems.

We are performing an 11pm show for the actors of the city. They have demanded to see it. The theatre is packed to the gills. Acting in front of our peers is a nerve-racking experience, but we’re young, and confident.

They are laughing. They are supportive. They are impressed.
The play builds up to its climax.
The Queen came down our street last year. The Queen. Down our fuckin’ street. And you know what those cunts did? They fuckin’ cleaned it!
Iron’s lesson now lads. Last lesson. One more river. Iron will teach you suffin’, won’t he? Now first position: Feet flat on the floor, arms out ‘ere, broken bottle of Tizer there.

And finally he lets rip. Crying and shouting, he explodes into an anger of animalistic intensity. We have safe areas on set as he smashes desks and chairs. Relatively safe. Earlier a splinter of wood had flown out into the audience and chipped a teacher’s glasses.

Later that night we are volunteer stage hands at Pete Poselthwaite’s theatre. He has broken away from the Vic, and has taken over an old theatre in the town. We are helping him lift sand on to the stage for his production of Waiting for Godot.
Daniel tells me he keeps fit by cycling. He cycles every day for two hours. He also shares with me a love of chocolate and shows me the best way to clean my teeth. I watch his Iron avidly every night. I want to know more about his technique, but no one is allowed close.
I know it’s possible…that I have it in me do what he does; to transform completely. It needs hard work and a monastic dedication. I think I can do it, but I need help. My voice and body have become lazy from years of filming. I need to get back to my roots and learn some technique. I decide there and then that I need to go to RADA.

Later that summer, I am walking out of the BBC.
A casting director, who has cast me in a couple of series, is walking in and stops me.
“Can I ask your advice? We’re looking at this young actor tomorrow for a part on Shoestring. You just worked with him.”
“Who?”
“He played Iron in your Class Enemy.. .Daniel Day Lewis… Is he any good?”

July 1991: Richard is 33.
They’re naked.
Our group have stripped off all their clothes and are now standing on top of the mountain, naked and laughing. And it is as natural as breathing to these Norwegians. No self consciousness. No hang-ups. They are at one ‘with the nature.’
I pause to catch my breath. My legs ache from the terrifying climb to the summit. The abyss is on my right. But I am nearly there.
Placing one foot in front of the other and concentrating on that step only, I reach the top of the mountain. They are now swimming in the glacier’s pool.
Oh well, when in Norway… I strip off my clothes and rush headlong into the icy water.
The cold snatches my breath away, but after the shock I swim across the pool.. fast. I even dive below. The cold is refreshing after the effort of climbing on a hot summer’s day.
When I dry off, my body tingles. It feels wonderful. I look around and walk towards the edge of the mountain and flop down on the grass.
My new friends run over and join me.
‘So RichARD, the Ken Brannagh…you like him?” Oddvar, naked, sits beside me
“I do.”
“I like him too… very much.”
“People in England slag him off.”
“Slag?”
“Oh… they criticize him.”
“Why. He‘s a good actor, yes?”
“He’s an easy target. People are jealous. Too young. Too successful. It’s an English thing.”
Oddvar throws down his towel and looks over to Janne, his wife.
“An English thing!” he laughs loudly and it echoes across the valley, far far below. “Hey, Janne, you like Kenneth Brannagh.”
“I think he’s good. Yes… but..” She smiles and hands Oddvar his trousers.
“What?” I ask.
“He’s doesn’t turn me on. No sex appeal. I wouldn’t sleep with him. Know what I mean?”
I nod. “ Yes, there is that, but he’ll get that as he gets older, you’ll see.”
I look down at the lake far below. A horrible thought enters my head. I look back and scan the horizon. I’m afraid to ask the question.
“Hey Oddvar, how do we get down from here?”
Oddvar smiles and points to the vertical drop behind me.
I turn white.
“Straight down, my friend, we have ropes to help us. Hey RichARD…”
“ I know. Think of the English.”

April 1976: Richard is 18.
I am wearing nothing but a short blue skirt. I am spread-eagled across a fake stone floor, tied to four wooden posts.
The floor manager calls out:
“That’s it for this morning. Lunch!”
And everyone leaves.
I call out, but nobody listens. The lights go out. I am left there. Alone. Tethered. Helpless.
The Feathered Serpent is a children’s series, set in the time of the Aztecs. I am playing Tozo, the young hero. I have the part because the author, John Kane - who I had seen play Puck in Peter Brook’s Dream - saw me in pantomime in Oxford, and recommended me to the producer.
It is only on this second series that the producer has realized that I have very un-Aztec-like dark blue eyes.
I am becoming nervous. The actor, Patrick Troughton - a previous Doctor Who - confided in me earlier:
“You know Tommy, that thick-set prop man? He’s gay and he’s after you.”

I pull at the ropes but I am stuck fast.
Suddenly music plays and the lights switch on.
And they are there. Surrounding me, the whole damn lot of them. Cast and crew and Tommy… and they are laughing their heads off.
Happy Birthday rings around the studio and a cake is brought in.
Patrick leans over me, chuckles in my ear and undoes the ropes.
“Happy eighteenth, Richard.“

July 1991: Richard is 33.
My knee buckles. We are halfway down. It has been a series of rope slides and small pathways cut into the mountainside. I lean away from the massive drop below. I’m terrified that somehow I might decide to jump out into the blue and see if I can fly down to the turquoise glacier lake miles below us. Oddvar straps up my knee and pats me on the back. He says nothing.
I study his face. He’s tired too.

April 1976: Richard is 18.
It has wood everywhere, pine tables, chairs, stripped-pine doors. It’s imperfect, unfinished but it feels like a home. And it always smells of coffee.
I love Milos’s flat because it is a home. I long for the day when I will have my own place. I mentally make notes of how similar mine will be to this.
Milos sits in a corner of his bedroom and laughs when I tell him what happened in the studio. He’s my closest friend and confidant. My mentor. He encourages me in everything I do artistically. He even reads my clumsy writing.
We met on a series called Soldier and Me. He was playing the Boss of the baddies. I was young Pavel Zola. He taught me my Czech accent for the show. We became friends.
Milos is Czech. He has kind brown eyes, a black beard, a bald head, with black graying hair at his temples. He escaped from Prague in 1968 and now lives in exile in London as an actor.
Going to see Milos is like going to therapy. Or at least how I imagine therapy might be.
He listens to my latest romances and escapades with infinite patience. He works with me on speeches. I come to him for peace, for solitude, for any advice.
“So happy birthday,” he says.
“Yes, eighteen at last. A man at last.”
“I have something I want to tell you.
“Is it important?”
“It is, to me.”
“Okay. Tell me.”
Milos sits on the side of the bedroom. I sip his strong coffee.
He looks at me, his eyes twinkling.
“I am … gay.”
I look at him disbelieving. He has had girlfriends. Women love Milos, He is not effeminate in any way.
“You’re joking.”
“No, I am gay. I wanted to tell you.”
“But how do you know?’
“Well… I thought I was straight. I tried to be straight. But something was missing. I have tried men and women, and now…”
Oh my God… his words are echoing around my head. I try and think of something to say.
“Are you sure?”
Milos starts laughing.
“ Look at you, look.”
I glance down. Somehow I have backed myself into a corner of the bedroom, as far away as I can be from him. I laugh too.
“Well what do you expect….?”
Milos is laughing so hard that tears are running down his cheeks and onto his beard.
“Great birthday present Milos, thanks.”

Milos’ actual present is pefect. A night out in the theatre. We are watching Alan Bates in Otherwise Engaged. I’m a big fan of Bates. I have watched many of his films. I have seen him on stage before. His performances are fascinating and intellectually precise. He flirts with the audience and finds a depth of feeling that lifts the words into another dimension.
Milos turns to me after the curtain call.
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Brilliant.”
“Would you like to meet him?”
“What?”
“I know him. Shall we go backstage?”
“No, you don’t know him…” He looks at me steadily. “Do you?”

Alan opens the dressing-room door himself.
“Milos!” he cries. He does know him. Milos introduces me and I sit down in a corner. There are five other guests in the room. Alan comes over with a glass of wine.
“Drink, Richard?”
I murmur my thanks. He pours the wine, and questions me about myself. Each question is punctuated by saying my name. I am impressed that he can remember. I always forget people’s names as soon as they’re introduced. He is warm, attentive and the perfect host.
“It’s Richard’s birthday today,” Milos announces.
I die with embarrassment, my face scarlet. Alan looks up.
“Well happy birthday, Richard. O, to be eighteen again…or perhaps not. Shall we have Champagne?”

July 1991: Richard is 33.
We have reached the valley floor. The sun is setting fast, and so we walk swiftly towards the mountain lodge, our home for that night. My knee aches and I am exhausted, but my body tingles with excitement… or the fear.

We have long showers in the lodge and then devour supper. Later Oddvar and I step out on to the terrace overlooking the lake. We smoke a cigarette and look at the stars.
“Hey RichARD, asshole, I forgot to give this to you.” He reaches into his pocket. “It’s a letter… looks like it came from America.”

I open it quickly. It’s from a lady I don’t know. She is an actress and lives in LA. She and her husband have been caring for Milos, she writes.. He asked her to tell me. He had AIDS. They made his last few months as comfortable as they could. They were very fond of him. He died three weeks ago and is buried in LA. He wanted to say that he misses me and he misses Charley. He’s been a rotten godfather, and he’s sorry.
He always talked of me, she writes, and when he did… he smiled.

February 1986: Richard is 27.
The opening monologue has gone well. When I spit at the first mention of the ‘shrink’ the audience roars its delight. I open the music box. The soft music brings the audience to the edge of their seats, straining to hear. It works like a zoom lens. I have them in my long red finger-nailed hands.
The rest is a blur. I handle the quick change from the drag with aplomb. I negotiate the tricky second play carefully, and by the third play, I’m flying.
Tony Sher appears in my dressing-room at the end. He is smiling and hugs me.
“That was incredible. An amazing job. It was very strange for me. Incredibly weird. It’s going to be an interesting show tonight. I wonder if I could be very cheeky and ask you a favor?”
“Of course.”
“Would you mind if I stole the music box and the spit?”

April 1976: Richard is 18.
“Well?” asks Milos as we walk down Shaftesbury Avenue.
“A great present… thank you.”
“You’re welcome. So eighteen eh? Where do you think you’ll be eighteen years from now?”
I stop and look up at the bright theatre lights.
“In a theatre…may be here.. … but definitely in a theatre.”

February 2008: Richard is 49.
I watch the faces of the faculty members seated in front of me. The presenter moves his chair and grins. I put down my workshop speeches and replace the workshop CD back in its sleeve.
“So the students aren’t coming?”
“No, unfortunately, but we’d love to do a question and answer session with you. We are so looking forward to your company’s Caesar, and to your Brutus, of course. I love Aquila’s work - did I pronounce the name correctly? - and it’s my favorite play, you know.”
“Right…” I look at them and shrug. “Okay, fire away.”
“Well… why don’t you start by telling us about yourself?”

I stare at them and swig on my bottle of water.
This is going be painful.
Deep breath in.
Here I go… I’m going in…

I was born at Stratford-upon Avon on purpose. My parents were actors. My Christening present was a Complete Works of Shakespeare and my first walk was outside the Royal Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, where I was held aloft and dedicated to the theatre…